Secondhand Faith
by Lellian
Summary: Sometimes, peacetime is as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year’s Chuunin exams. AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. ShikaTem KibaTayu NejiTenKank
1. Whirling Dervish

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** Whirling Dervish

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** A very boring PG. It is, however, the first chapter so the rating can be forgiven.

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…)

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

In the desert, the shadows of the dusk snuck up on you. They fell, hard and fast, turning pale sand grey and the hollows between dunes an inky charcoal. Evening was a subversive thing; distracting one with the fiery brilliance of a desert sunset so as to conceal the plummeting temperature and the landscape's dive into hiding.

There were no lights to illuminate the arid wasteland beyond the red mud walls of Sunagakure. Foreigners had difficulty understanding that the hidden village in Wind Country was a veritable haven; wasn't desert country uniformly inhospitable? It wasn't until night fell and Sunagakure was transformed from a rough-hewn and sprawling village into a safe haven that used softly lit windows and sturdy walls to shield against the looming darkness and gritty winds of the surrounding desert that they realised four walls and a roof (plus _running water_) were all the luxury any one person really required out here.

Only in the desert did you run the risk of death by both sunstroke and exposure in the space of twenty-four hours.

Shikamaru quite liked the desert. Out here, sunlight was pretty much guaranteed and the brighter the light, the deeper the shadows. It was an environment uniquely suited to his particular fighting style, though he was somewhat hampered at midday when the sun rose highest and shadows were shortest, with little to cast them in the wide, open space.

Besides. Rain was troublesome; humidity as well.

Overhead, the dull blades of the ceiling fan spun languidly, sending a low thrumming sound throughout the room. Their passage was reflected in the metallic surface of the water flask set on the desk he stood before, shrunk down in miniature into a blurred catherine wheel, distorted by the convex curve of the container. A bead of sweat rolled indecisively down the nape of his neck – while the sun was indeed sinking towards the western horizon, the heat of the day hadn't dissipated yet. Stone absorbed heat well and took time to relinquish it, though the decline in temperature would be a steep one when it arrived. Ravine wall steep.

The silence was as heavy as the lingering heat. In front of him, head bent over the diplomatic scroll he'd carried here, Suna's Kage frowned in absent thought. Behind him and to the left, just in Shikamaru's line of vision, Temari watched her youngest brother. To the other side, Kankurou leant against the wall. His attention resided with Gaara too.

After an eternity (or was it a second?) the young (but not so young anymore, not really) Kazekage shifted and looked up at Shikamaru, losing him his porcelain statue status. "And Naruto thinks the terms are reasonable?"

Shikamaru shrugged. It was a trademark gesture of his since it took a bevy of synonymous words, an entire emotion and replaced its complexity with a single, easy motion. "He knows that they have to play by our rules," he replied. "I don't think reason comes into it." Behind Gaara, Temari laughed softly and Kankurou smirked. The corner of Shikamaru's own mouth twitched in response. "He says, however, that it is fair."

"They're not crippled any more." Kankurou pushed himself away from the wall, though the laziness of the motion almost suggested that it was the wall doing the pushing, not him. "Barely functional, but not crippled. Seems to me, the decision here is whether to let Oto have a chance to grow back its fangs."

"No fangs – not with Orochimaru five years dead." This came from Temari and Gaara's pale eyes slanted towards her from behind the half moons of his reading glasses. Though hardly _old _at twenty two some unfortunate hitch in his genetics had led to this necessity, but it had been argued that this came about because he was one of the few Kages to actually _do _his own paperwork. His sister, noting his silent invitation to further her point, did so. "Between us, we slaughtered them. We killed their leader, decimated their adult ninja population and pretty much crippled them financially. It's taken them this long just to train up the next generation of ninja – they're hardly going to be a threat any time soon."

Like any self-respecting brother would, Kankurou disagreed. "This is Oto. _Oto_. Orochimaru's own special little project. Even with him dead, it's like inviting the snake to wait in the grass for us to step on it. They're _always _going to be a threat."

The puppeteer looked to Shikamaru for agreement, but the younger man held up his hands in apathetic defence. "Too much snake imagery for me."

In her corner, Temari laughed. "We Suna folk like our metaphors," she teased. She moved to stand behind Gaara's chair, elegant yet callused hands resting on its back. "Besides, little brother here's made a decision anyway, no matter what we say." She turned an amused jade gaze downwards. "Eh, Gaara?"

The slim young man tipped his head back just enough so that he could see her grinning, catlike face over the rims of glasses. Slowly and deliberately, he removed them, folded them and pocketed them before picking up his pen-brush. The signature he made was neat and efficient even after years of official use. When he set the brush down, his calm eyes met Shikamaru's hooded ones. Understanding resided in that gaze and the envoy from Konoha nodded, his small smile signalling approval that would have been insulting to a ninja of Gaara's rank, but was merely amiable when directed towards to the serious young man Shikamaru now counted as a friend.

"Oto is permitted to submit candidates to the Chuunin exams to be held in Suna in three months time." Such was the edict of the Godaime Kazekage.

Kankurou sighed, but took defeat well – he deferred to his brother in most things after all. "With conditions?" he asked.

"With conditions." For while Naruto, Rokudaime Hokage, had taught Gaara of compassion, the Suna-nin did not let it rule him.

Sensing that business was over for the evening (and it was definitely evening now because the sun was gone and the sky outside was inky) Shikamaru bowed to the siblings assembled before him. "I will return to Konoha tomorrow and inform Naruto of your decision."

Something that didn't really count as a smile, but _did _count as Gaara's version of one made its wintery way across his pale face. "Very good."

A heavy hand thudded onto his shoulder; an equally heavy arm did the same around the back of his neck. "Yeah, yeah, very good and all that. Drinks now?"

Temari eyed her brother's man-handling of Shikamaru with some degree of exasperation. Being notably female and an elder sister, she had it down to a fine art by now. "Isn't it a little early for that?"

Kankurou's grin had the dangerous quality that his family seemed to have perfected to it. "Sun's down. It's late enough."

"The sun goes down here at _six_." Shikamaru felt obliged to point that out, however little heed he knew the Kazekage's brother would pay that gem of logic. He was a genius and he knew a lost battle when he saw one. Resigned, he let the sturdier man hustle him off to what the sages only knew.

Temari lingered behind. Were Gaara's eyebrows more prominent, he would have perhaps raised one at her. As things stood, he had to settle for tipping his head marginally to one side in a vague silently questioning manner. She smiled in the amiable, easy way that never failed to instil in him a quiet sort of bewilderment that he was the kind of person to whom such smiles were _offered_.

Old mindsets died hard.

"The world almost seems to be moving on." She leant against his desk and her long skirt rustled against the polished veneer. "Oto rejoining the ninja community, Naruto's three year anniversary as Rokudaime—," A pointed (if affectionate) grin. "—Kankurou's insistence on getting every diplomatic envoy we receive drunk." The low lamp shone through dry strands of muted gold hair, softening their usual errant existence into something much more akin to a gentle aureole than the thatch it could sometimes be after a hard day's work, despite the stern bunches she tamed them into each morning.

"The latter is perhaps the reason for the recent influx of more junior couriers we've been receiving," Gaara replied in his usual dry manner.

Temari waved an absent hand: the point was moot after all. She was not the sort of woman to look dreamy – indeed, she was a kunoichi born and bred with a core of steel and an exterior as seemingly granular and rough as Gaara's own sand shield. She ran roughshod over her charges, had (on occasion) shocked the Suna elders with her snapped curses on particularly bad days and had always had a rather skewed view about who should rescue who when it came to princes and princesses. Instead, she just looked considerate. Musing. Thoughtful.

"You could almost say things are restful," she said. Then her lip curled minutely. "Except, for all our peace treaties, we're _shinobi_." And wasn't '_shinobi' _the antonym to '_peace'_? A sigh drifted out of her barely parted lips. "You know?"

Gaara didn't reply. She didn't expect one. She just did this sometimes - came and talked and mused and theorised at him. She did it when the shadows lengthened and the moon rose. New, half, gibbous or full, the moon could sometimes turn his kunoichi sister into a scholar, a philosopher. There lurked an intellect beneath her hard demeanour, the same intellect that Kankurou promoted and Gaara retained for emergency use only (being Kazekage required logic and organisation over philosphy; political knowledge instead of something more esoteric.)

The brief moment passed. Temari lost that tilt of her head, the cant of her hips, that considering look in eyes which wouldn't have appeared out of place on a gryphon. Earthbound once more, she grinned at him and reached across the desk towards him. Strong, slim fingers mussed his already unruly hair. He wrinkled his noise in the response she expected and Temari was satisfied. The hand retreated and she bowed, a fond mockery of what Shikamaru had performed before her.

"Duty calls – someone needs to make sure the boys go to bed at a reasonable hour."

"You're not joining them?"

"Of course I'm joining them." Temari's tone was an overly patient one yet somehow infinitely smug. "I can just out-drink them both."

That actually drew a chuckle out of Gaara and Temari, pleased, smiled as she let herself out of her brother's office.

Left alone with the shadows and the slowly rotating ceiling fan, Suna's Kage looked to the window on his left. True night reigned now and, as such, the view through the narrow window was almost uniformly black beyond the boundary of the village Gaara was sworn to protect.

There were no lights to guide you in the desert at night and it was far too easy to lose your way in those thick, heavy shadows.

In his haven (with its walls and its lamps and its water) the Kazekage dozed in his chair. Because he could now. Because these really were, for a shinobi, restful times.

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

Yes, I know, it's short, but I'm experimenting. I'm writing by the seat of my pants because this idea's already picked me up and is running with me. I have little choice, it seems.

Naturally, I am worried.

I shall tentatively, _tentatively_, be setting up a schedule for an update once a week. Whether they'll always be on a Tuesday is undecided (we'll see how I adjust to this year's timetable at school and when I'll be able to write in my free periods or at home) but I think a deadline will make my work more structured instead of my previous 'update when it's finished' approach.

I hope you've enjoyed – this is something a little new to me, but it was one of those 'hit me in the bath' bunnies and it demanded to take priority over such trivialities as paying attention to my boyfriend/family/friends, schoolwork and sleeping (it's nearly two in the morning in London as I type this.) I'd really appreciate any feedback, just to see what people think.

**In next week's episode…**_ "Been there, drunk that, got the hangover shirt."_


	2. Been There, Drunk That

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** Been There, Drunk That

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG. (Still.)

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Also: italics abuse.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

"What did he give you: the red bottle or the green?"

"Both." Shikamaru winced. "And he added something from a hipflask."

Naruto echoed the Nara's wince and clicked his tongue in sympathy. "Been there, drunk that, got the hangover shirt." It wasn't even ten in the morning yet, but his official Hokage hat was already slung carelessly on top of a precariously stacked pile of paperwork. He had indeed been subject to Kankurou's free hand with beverages of an almost toxically alcoholic nature and was therefore not too pissed with Shikamaru for having taken an extra day or two to have returned from Suna in that the lazy bastard actually _had_ an excuse this time. "He _keeps _doing this. Surely it counts as a violation of diplomatic immunity by now?"

His appeal was directed towards Sakura who, unlike Naruto, was most unsympathetic about the whole situation.

"Not if our diplomats are fool enough to accept his weapon of choice." The young medic could fit a world of callousness into a single, pointed sniff. "I hope you properly rehydrated yourself at the time." She had little patience for shinobi who used 'forced intoxication and its subsequent medical impairment' in their mission reports to explain their lateness. This may or may not have had something to do with her own ridiculously high alcohol tolerance which, in turn, may or may not have had something to do with her past mentor. Pink hair caught the light, gleamed, then softened back into normality as she hopped up onto the edge of Naruto's desk. Once she was perched comfortably, Sakura cast a benign look in Shikamaru's direction. "So. What did Gaara have to say about Oto's request?"

Were Shikamaru anything other than a lazy bum, he'd have stood to attention to report. As it was, he just seemed to lounge _harder _in his chair. The informal atmosphere in the Hokage's office with its present company didn't necessitate military precise responses and etiquette. Hell, Naruto was practically mirroring him in his own chair, Sakura wasn't even _using _a chair and Sasuke was lurking in his own corner. Clearly, discipline was of high import here.

"He'll be sending you details of the conditions he wants to enforce upon the Oto party in the next week or so. I think he particularly wants to restrict the number of jounin-level shinobi they can bring."

"Sensible." The dispassionate observation was Sasuke's to offer.

"Quite." Sakura's disapproving look was back however. "I still don't like it. We've heard so little from Oto in the past few years. Who knows what they're getting up to in that village of theirs?"

Naruto, ever quick to believe that his village was superior in size and strength and should only ever be described in the superlative, made an inelegant and dismissive noise. "They're of no threat to us, Sakura-chan. We thrashed 'em once; we can thrash 'em again."

Sasuke, a wraith of pale skin and impossibly dark hair, stirred lazily. "Sakura, the monkey's thinking out of his ass again."

"_Hey!_"

"Now, Sasuke, he's entitled to his own opinion…"

"Not when it's as inane as that. 'We can thrash 'em again'? Che. A child may as well have composed it."

"_Hey_." Naruto spoke hotly, an indignant finger levelled at his tip-turned and mournful looking hat. It slipped another morose inch and came precariously close to falling completely, but the outraged blond wasn't paying it that much attention. "Who is Hokage here? _Who?_"

This seemed to be an old argument. While Naruto and Sasuke sniped at each other in irritable familiarity, Sakura rolled her eyes and drummed her heels lightly against the side of the desk. "And this is the way our Hokage and an ANBU captain behaves." Her sigh had the long-suffering tone of a caretaker to it.

Shikamaru's fingers itched for a cigarette, but he'd learned the hard way that lighting up in front of Sakura was about as tiresome as lighting up in front of his mother – perhaps more so because the pink-topped young woman actually had the medical knowledge to describe the exact effects of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide had upon his body in a decidedly unwelcome manner.

The bickering (which mainly consisted of taunts from Sasuke's half of the field and feisty, if crude, retaliation from Naruto's) was allowed by Sakura to go on for a little while before a cheery and positively _terrifying _smile bloomed on her face. Shikamaru (being, by nature, fairly tranquil) didn't jump when her palm hit the desk with a rather…solid sound, but her old teammates did. (Well, Sasuke twitched and blinked while Naruto squawked and retreated back hastily from where he'd been all up in his rival's face.) "So," she started, all bright and sunny and _scary_. "Shikamaru. What do _you _think about the situation at hand?"

Oh. Wonderful. She was looking to him to distract them. Shikamaru repressed a sigh and sank down further into his chair, hunching his shoulders. His body language spoke of reluctance, but after a few close-eyed seconds he started to speak, steadily.

"Otagakure suffered heavy losses in its clash with Konoha and Suna. Nearly all elite-class ninja were lost and its total population was reduced to a fifth its original size. In the aftermath, it lacked both Orochimaru and anything resembling a power structure. That and the destruction of their main base, plus the cholera outbreak that followed, caused their effective crippling for at least a year until they were able to build their village back to minimal functionality.

"Even with that behind them, they were nowhere near close to being back on their feet. The loans they were forced to take to be able to make repairs left them very much in debt and, with their depleted ninja force, I doubt they even had _time _to contemplate revenge when feeding themselves was probably of a higher priority."

Shikamaru's glance at Sasuke revealed a grudging expression of agreement; Naruto was frowning as he always did when assimilating a new idea (and sociological development post war situations counted as 'new') while Sakura was her usual attentive self. Satisfied that they were listening, the spiky-haired genius continued.

"I'd estimate that it's taken them all this time just to reach the stage where they can function as a viable ninja village with a suitably large working population to bring in the minimum sustainable income necessary. And I'd say that six years is enough time for them to have fast-tracked enough youngsters through training to have them ready for the chuunin exams, so this request of theirs is a genuine necessity. Them wanting to enter the chuunin exams seems to be about surviving and progressing, not about revenge. And, frankly, they don't have the resources or the manpower to take on any of the villages that came off better than them in the war. We needed to take on extra missions for a year or so to cover repairs; they had to completely rebuild from the ground up."

When Shikamaru looked at his Hokage for the second time, Naruto looked a little dazed. Even now, when he counted as an adult, his learning skills had always leant much more towards the kinaesthetic than with just being talked at. So, in summary: "They're not a threat. In my opinion. And it's hardly a request to become allies, just an affirmation of their lack of hostility at the moment."

"Six years is a long time to go without causing trouble if that had been their intention." Sasuke's cool, dry logic seemed to concur with Shikamaru's own reasoning.

"Guys, guys," Naruto broke in, his usual feral grin firmly back in place now that his brain had caught up with his ears. "You're just saying what I said. We thrashed 'em once; we can thrash 'em again!"

"…idiot."

Sakura, whose unofficial title seemed to be that of babysitter, averted another insult match with the usual, forthright diversion. "So Oto's coming. Fine. More importantly, who do we think will put their teams up for the chuunin exams?"

"I know Ino thinks her brats are ready, even if they're rookies."

"Hey, we were rookies."

"…and only I passed."

"I beat _Gaara_. Asuma had to rescue you. The examiners were clearly blind."

Sakura returned things to order once more. "Yuugao-san's team had to drop out the week before the last set of exams due to injury, so I'm sure she'll be putting them up." The purple-haired woman had resigned from ANBU a few years back and had since then proved herself an excellent teacher.

"What about Kakashi's new team?" Naruto wanted to know.

Sasuke shook his head. "He learned his lesson with us. His last team didn't go for the exam until they'd been with him for nearly three years."

"Aww, that doesn't count. His team was _terrible_."

Sakura smacked him lightly over the head. "They weren't 'terrible', Naruto. They just weren't terribly…teamwork-orientated."

"And that was mostly Neji's cousin's fault," Sasuke pointed out with a smirk. Shikamaru reasoned that it was a bloodline clan thing to take any flaw in another clan as a personal victory.

'_Superior bastards…'_

"Speaking of whom, his team failed last time, didn't they?" When the others confirmed that yes, they had ("Couldn't even get through the Forest of Death," sniggered Naruto,) Sakura nodded decisively. "So he'll be putting them up again. There are a few other 'maybes' but that's still a fair contribution from Konoha."

Were he not so close to his Hokage, Shikamaru may have been a little freaked out by the passionate fire that suddenly burst to life in Naruto's already bright eyes. As it was he just took it in his stride, like he did with most things. (If anything, Shikamaru had grown even _more _mellow with legal adulthood.)

"I can't wait to see our kids beat Gaara's!" he proclaimed with _far _too much fervour and enthusiasm.

Beside him, Sakura looked a little amused. "The way you talk about them, anyone would think they were actually your flesh and blood offspring."

Ever the ham (and the flirt) the blond pushed his chair over towards her on its wheels, a leer on his face. "Can't blame a guy for being proud, but hey, I'd be just as proud of any kids you'd like to make out of _our_ flesh and blood. I'm Hokage so I could easily get you paid maternity leav—hah, missed!"

The medic scowled at him in exasperation as he wheeled away, laughing heartily, but her expression lacked any real drive. Behind them, Sasuke rolled his eyes and even that action held tolerance.

Observing the trio from under half-hooded eyes, Shikamaru knew that, while the presence of the new sannin didn't make up for the deaths of the old, the village took comfort from them. They'd very much been the symbol of a new Konohagakure after the wars, after the turmoil; a symbol of just what a team should be.

They certainly bickered like most teams did.

Shikamaru heaved himself out of his chair with a quiet grunt of effort. He adjusted his flak jacket and flicked a lazy salute in Naruto's direction. "Is Master done with me for the day?" he asked drolly.

'Master' snorted. "Yeah, yeah, you can piss off if you want now. Do whatever. Just be in on time tomorrow – I have an interesting A-class mission I need someone to do."

"Aye aye, sir." The young man waved a languid farewell to Sakura and Sasuke as he exited at his usual ambling pace. "Later."

Sakura watched him go with a certain degree of fondness – she liked Shikamaru because he was placid and intelligent, but… "He's hopeless, sometimes."

Sasuke's gaze held none of the amiability his female teammate's did, but its neutrality was evidence enough that he actually got along with the young genius. The Uchiha had never had much patience for those whose intellect fell below his, so it was hardly surprising that the small group of people who _didn't _irritate him by breathing included Shikamaru, Neji and not many others. Rambunctious individuals such as Kiba and Ino were written off immediately; the accommodating Chouji and Hinata were classed as weak while Sai was a definite 'no'. Tenten and Shino were tolerated and Lee was useful only as a sparring partner once in a while. The rest of the village didn't even register, aside from Kakashi. And the less said about Sasuke's rather confusing view of his old sensei the better.

Naruto was looking rather disgruntled and, at Sakura's questioning look, 'humph'ed before slumping back in his chair. "Lazy bum. He gets to sleep all day now while I have a ridiculous amount of paperwork to get through."

"And that meeting with the elders," Sasuke added, just because. Naruto's expression, if possible, fell even further. Traditionalist elders plus demon fox boy with definite liberal leanings usually equated to a very tense atmosphere and a distinct aura of unhelpfulness from both sides.

Sakura was already attacking a precarious stack of documents, sorting them in order of importance. "Probably not, actually. I think he's more likely to go check on Kurenai-san."

"Ah." Naruto blinked. Once, twice. "Oh yeah."

oOo

When Kurenai opened the door, Shikamaru offered her a smile – weary, but genuine. Her initial surprise mellowed down into obvious pleasure, like blackberry liqueur bleeding into champagne and turning it a sunset-soft pink. Wordlessly she stood to one side to let him in.

After the automatic ritual of shucking his shoes and his jacket, the young jounin settled himself cross-legged before the low table in Kurenai's main living room. And, as usual, it wasn't long before the sound of scampering feet announced Haruhi's presence. The brown-haired little girl squealed happily when she saw the guest, joy overtaking her capacity for language at that precise moment in time, and scrambled onto his lap. It wasn't a particularly comfortable lap being bony and angular, but they made it fit somehow. She chattered on at him about games and the like, about her imaginary friend and what her mother was making for her dinner until Kurenai joined them with a freshly brewed pot of tea and a plate of cookies. Haruhi made another wordless sound of pleasure and dove in; Shikamaru and Kurenai followed more sedately.

"How was Suna?" the dark-haired woman wanted to know.

"Hot," Shikamaru replied. He flinched when he scalded his tongue on too hot tea and blew on it before venturing another taste. "Very hot. No, it's okay, you eat it."

Haruhi beamed and finished the slightly soggy cookie she'd held up to Shikamaru's mouth. Kurenai watched her daughter with soft amusement before her gentle, if striking eyes turned towards Shikamaru again. "And Temari-san, how is she?"

"Able to drink far more than any decent woman should," he grumbled.

Haruhi laughed when Kurenai did – not out of any real understanding of the comment, but because she adored her mother immensely and her laughing was reason enough to do the same. Shikamaru ruffled dark hair indulgently and the six-year old squirmed in protest.

It was habit by now. Whenever Shikamaru was away from the village for more than a few days, he always visited the small house on its outskirts once he returned. Here he always found a welcoming smile and an armful of enthusiastic girl-child, plus food of some sort. He usually visited Ino as well, Chouji too, but the atmospheres were different. With the former usually came a lecture as to his health/weight/state of dress/lack of calls in the past month while the latter offered comfort, safety and a true sense of being home.

Not that Kurenai made him feel any less at home. Today they talked of inane things (as always) and doted quietly over Haruhi (as always). The little girl showed him a drawing she'd done that he was pretty sure was meant to be a butterfly and a flower (or was it a brightly coloured dog and a person with a very strange hat?) Kurenai mentioned her plans to plant corn in the small garden she maintained, though she wondered whether mid-May was too late to be doing this. Shikamaru entertained them with tales of the last drinking excursion Ino and Kiba had dragged him on and, all the while, he didn't feel the need to light up once.

They finished the tea. Haruhi finished the cookies. By then, noon was fast approaching.

"You can stay for lunch if you want," Kurenai offered.

A lot of the time, when Shikamaru smiled, it was a lop-sided thing. Like he was too lazy to even lift both sides of his mouth. Like it was an effort. Like he didn't really mean it. With Kurenai and Haruhi looking at him hopefully, he didn't even have to tell his lips to smile because they were already doing it. On both sides. "Thanks, but I should go tell Ino that I'm home. She probably needs someone to moan to about her genin team and you know what girls are like…"

"Troublesome," the mother and daughter pair chorused, looking equally devious. Shikamaru chuckled in defeat, turning his head obligingly when Kurenai brushed a kiss against his cheek. "Visit soon," she told him sternly. He nodded and bent down so his face was on a level with Haruhi's. Asuma's legacy beamed up at him. "Cousin Konahamaru's coming to play tomorrow!" she informed him gleefully.

"Have fun," Shikamaru told her. "Make him run around a lot, okay?"

"'kay!"

Shikamaru's responsibility had the face of a six-year old girl. It was one of the few burdens he shouldered without complaint.

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

See? A longer chapter! I can stop feeling unproductive.

And, judging by the first few chapters, I'm not sure why the summary doesn't say 'Starring Nara Shikamaru'. I doubt this will remain his show (and he really hopes not because doing things from his point of view takes effort) but for now it works.

I couldn't help including Kurenai and Asuma's sproglet. He deserved a cute kid, so this is my own little tribute to him.

For the record, I like writing smart!Shikamaru, particularly political!Shikamaru. Hence his dissertation on Oto's progress. Sorry.

**In next week's episode…**

"_The hat game has no upper age limit."_


	3. Politics Equates to Playing Dirty

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** Politics Equates to Playing Dirty

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG. (Still.)

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Yondaime stuff.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

Temari could be quite the diplomat if she so wished.

The gossamer-steel game of politics intrigued her with its honeyed words and subtle byplay, all with iron undertones. It was a game of who could see further into the indefinite future of cause and effect, of who could plan for every possible outcome and of who could intimidate who the best through a handshake and a smile.

Gaara, if you wanted to know.

He had it down to a fine art, with just the amount of pressure from his cool, dry hand and with a suitably eerie and deadpan smile. Having pale, pale green eyes helped. Many a diplomat seemed unnerved by that unblinking gaze, however much the colour reminded Temari of the budding spring greenery she saw when she was in Konoha.

But yes, her brother usually won political battles and Temari was proud of that. Nearly a decade ago, her brother had been homicidal and psychotic (don't forget the resident demon badger) and now he was Kazekage. A _successful _Kazekage. What wasn't a sister to be proud of?

She watched him greet a daimyo, the one from Waterfall country. His manners were flawless, if reserved, and the noble was pleased by that. She missed a beat when he turned to her for _her _greeting, but disguised it with a bow.

Today's official welcoming party featured the young Kazekage and his sister, but the middle brother was missing – officially because he was required elsewhere, but mostly because (unlike his siblings) Kankurou was _no _diplomat. Temari had memories from their not too distant childhood in which she and her brother sat in on boring, endless ceremonies and had amused themselves by counting hats. Extra points for feathers or particularly garish colours. Whereas the blonde young woman had eventually developed an interest in it all, Kankurou had gone in completely the opposite direction and he could fidget like none other.

Sending him off to greet the Konoha party kept him occupied with people he wouldn't offend and away from the ones he would.

Temari's thoughts were wrenched away from her errant brother by the arrival of the diplomats from Rain. As usual, she didn't recognise any of them – Ame's political state shifted so rapidly due to its precarious position in the world that its leaders changed just as fast. Her manner remained polite, bowing when required like a smiling clockwork doll. In the period after Gaara's installation as Kazekage when Temari had still been adjusting to counting as a dignitary in her own right instead of her father's, dealing with diplomats from Rain had always been a trial. In a war-strewn country where the male to female ratio of shinobi was heavily biased, the fairer sex were of more use as brood mares than as warriors or politicians and these views bled over into the behaviour of the country's emissaries. Ever a strong, proud girl, it had rankled Temari at first and Baki had been forced to remonstrate her for her stiff behaviour with any visitors from Ame. Now, her smile was free and easy (if completely fake.)

Indeed, Temari could be quite the diplomat.

The last of them passed and she made her last bow before they were led off to settle into their assigned quarters. Many of the foreigners looked hot and sweaty in their formal robes, not having the constitution for Suna's hot and dry climate. Giving them a day or so to acclimatise was a necessary part of any gathering held in Wind country and this year's chuunin exams were no different.

"Double points – that woman's hat has feathers _and _it's hot pink."

Temari laughed and (gently) rammed an elbow back into Kankurou's stomach where he'd come up behind her. He wheezed, but didn't falter too much – he was of a much heftier build than she and Gaara were and could take harder blows. "How old are you?" she wanted to know, turning to face her brother.

"The hat game has no upper age limit," Kankurou replied haughtily. He adjusted his hood, pulling it back so that he could scratch briefly at his hairline. Unlike the foreign dignitaries, Kankurou had no problems with the blistering climate – his face paint remained neat, tidy and unbesmirched by sweat. "Done sucking up to the big guys?"

…no, Kankurou was definitely _not _a diplomat.

Temari nodded and, looking pleased, Kankurou grabbed her arm. He also grabbed Gaara's, but in a far more deliberate I'm-going-to-let-you-see-this-coming-so-as-not-to-startle-you kind of way. Gaara was their brother and they loved him, but he wasn't the sort anyone wanted to sneak up behind. His siblings firmly in tow, Kankurou dragged them over towards the group of Konoha ninja it had been his job to welcome. When it became apparent that this was his overall destination, Gaara didn't need dragging because he'd spotted Naruto.

"Gaara!"

They were a fine pair of village leaders what with Naruto bounding over to them and Gaara letting the taller blonde give him what could only be described as a hearty glomp. If Temari's brother had poise and scary dignity, then Naruto had none. He was exuberance and enthusiasm wrapped up in Kage robes – an incongruous picture if ever there was one.

In hindsight, perhaps it was just a Konoha thing. His predecessor, Tsunade, had certainly been eclectic – female, for one thing, and an avid gambler for another. And Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime Hokage, had been infamous for his sunny temperament _and _his ability to take out a hundred men in the space of an afternoon.

It was the rain, Temari decided. The rain did funny things to Shinobi minds, leaked in through their skin and ears to soak the brain and addle the senses. Silly temperamental ninja from silly temperate countries.

"Yo."

Speaking of silly ninja…

Shikamaru looked bored even with that Inuzuka boy lounging all over him. A large, hot-looking dog lay panting on the sand nearby. The Nara was puffing on one of those infernal cigarettes, the desert wind teasing the smoke into wraith-like veils.

She cracked a grin. "Hey, leaf-brat. Here to join the party?"

"Pretty much everyone is," he replied dryly. "Naruto seems to have decided to make a vacation out of this."

"Blondie always had a pretty good grasp on things," Kankurou said with a snide tone to his rough voice. The Inuzuka – Kiba, that was his name – snickered. His resemblance to her brother was more than a little bit uncanny if one removed such obstructions as fuzzy hoods and purple face paint, with their shaggy hair and blunt, masculine features. Temari wasn't well acquainted with the Konoha ninja, but Kankurou was fairly familiar with him after a few joint missions; liked him even. Particularly when he could taunt him with reminders of how it had been due to him that the younger boy had even survived all those years ago. The two of them immediately started catching up (her brother was such a gossip sometimes, whatever he said) leaving Shikamaru and Temari free of their respective hangers-on.

Temari's green gaze drifted over the Konoha party and raised a delicate, blonde eyebrow. "Did you bring your _entire _village?"

Shikamaru followed her eyeline. "Not really. Just the ones who wanted to come, who didn't have previous responsibilities."

Her raised eyebrow floated up another inch. "I guess Suna's a more popular vacation spot than I thought."

Behind where Naruto was tousling a deadpan-looking Gaara's hair, Shikamaru's blonde teammate was wrangling a rather hyperactive team of genin, her scolding voice carrying with the wind behind it. Two other teams were in evidence – a more sedate one led by a tall purple-haired woman Temari didn't recognise and another led by a jounin she _did._

Hyuuga Neji seemed to trust his charges to behave without him watching them continuously. Though, given the nature of his bloodline limit, he may have just not needed to make his surveillance obvious. At any rate, he seemed unconcerned as he talked quietly to Tenten. The slim girl had her blind eye turned towards her otherwise Temari would have waved – the two were tentative friends though Temari's superior strength sometimes cast a pall over the other girl's demeanour.

The last member of that particular cell was here as well. Lee, a frequent visitor to Suna since he usually challenged himself to make the journey shorter each time and was therefore perfect for courier duty, was difficult to miss. The dark-haired effeminate lad he was talking to with the blank, bland face was more so and his name escaped her. She'd never actually had cause to talk to him, but Kankurou had. For some reason, her brother _really _didn't like the guy.

Temari was also slightly uneasy to see the scarred and volatile examiner from her first chuunin exam present. Morino Ibiki was an understandably disturbing man, both in appearance and manner. Some sixth sense made him look up and she was _sure _he smirked at her.

'_Moving on…'_

And, since Naruto was present, it was a given that Sakura and Sasuke would be as well. They were hardly their teammate's shadow, but they were usually found where he was simply because the trio operated that way. They were strong individuals and lost nothing through _still _being referred to as Team Seven when most other genin teams drifted apart as they aged, but they were also individuals who worked well together.

If one gave it a little thought, it was rather similar to the way in which she, Gaara and Kankurou operated and the thought reassured her – if they dealt with matters in the same way as another highly successful and stable shinobi village (and weren't Suna and Konoha powers to be reckoned with in the ninja world?) then both teams must have been doing _something _right.

"Temari-san!"

Sakura really was a pretty little thing, shorter than Temari and cute in a delicate way that the older woman wasn't. She bowed swiftly, pink hair sheeting forwards to hide her face then reversing just as fast. _She _was smiling, unlike Sasuke who'd followed her when she'd trotted over. His face remained beautiful and coldly arrogant: not all that different from the first time his aristocratic features had caught her eye. She cocked a brow at him by way of silent greeting and he arched one in response.

One learned to expect that less was more when it came from Sasuke and to not aim any higher than that.

"Are we late? We were just leaving when Naruto realised he hadn't locked his front door – what an example to be setting as a world leader, eh?" Sakura was far more effusive and emotive, though she lacked the girlish and (if Temari was honest, but harsh) screechy manner she'd possessed as a twelve-year old. Now, as Temari watched her shake her head over her Hokage's lack of common sense, the Suna ninja fathomed that, perhaps, war had done Sakura some good. She was bright, but in a polished kunai way: beautiful, but with a keen, honed edge.

And she was good at keeping both Naruto and Sasuke in check. That alone made her an admirable woman.

"Not at all – you're not the last to arrive, anyway."

"Oh?" Sakura looked up at her in interest? "Who's not here yet?"

"Oto." Surprise registered on Sakura's features and her next 'oh' was of a much different intonation to the first. "Not exactly the way to go about giving a good impression, hmm?"

Sakura, because she was a reasonable girl, pulled a face and said: "They do have the furthest to come."

Behind her, Sasuke gave a disparaging grunt that made his views toward latecomers quite clear. "Then they should have left earlier."

That made Temari smirk, a feline expression that tugged at the corners of her mouth and exposed her eyeteeth. "Point."

"The Sound bastards are late?" Kiba and Kankurou had joined the conversation once more and the Inuzuka lad looked amused. "Nice to know they're just as polite as the first time we saw them."

Sasuke's dark eyes, if possible, turned even blacker at the reference to his defection. Nine years down the line and it was still a sore point Temari noted. Sakura placed a careful hand on his forearm and, while he shrugged it off, he did also lose the dangerous cast to his slanted eyes, the hint of red that threatened to bleed into the irises.

"Perhaps everyone else was just early," Shikamaru suggested and the bland comment succeeded in defusing any tension that had bloomed suddenly. A smile was passed around (in Sasuke's case, a smirk) and all was well again. Conversation resumed - nice, easy, unremarkable conversation - and any lingering sharpness in the air dissipated.

The desert wind picked up and Kiba complained of getting sand in his eyes. He hunched further under his hood when the others laughed. Temari was chuckling away at his indignant expression at her brother thumping him on the shoulder amiably to 'knock the sand out' when she caught a glimpse of Shikamaru's suddenly wide-eyed gaze disappearing over her shoulder and the low sound died away.

Not much surprised Shikamaru and a shiver of foreboding trickled down her spine despite the heat. Temari turned and the sight of blood red hair sent a brief, heady surge of adrenaline through her bloodstream.

Tayuya of the Sound Four stared back at her and it wasn't a happy look.

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

Anyone who knows me and read the summary must have seen this coming a mile off. Tayuya is easily my favourite character in Naruto (well, at least on a par with Sakura and Iruka) and I've always been depressed by Kishimoto's slaughtering of her. And since this is my AU, I'll take any chance I can to bring her back from the dead. Go, go artistic license!

**In next week's episode…**

"_Kidoumaru, kindly control your pet, please."_


	4. Fight, Flight or Curse Like Hell

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** Fight, Flight or Curse Like Hell

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG-13. This is mainly Tayuya's fault…

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

Practically, Tayuya had been aware that the sand-bitch would be there. One didn't deal with Suna without dealing with the Kazekage and his siblings and, as Kidoumaru had briefed her before leaving, she had to behave herself and not to allow that _giant fucking chip _on her shoulder to become apparent.

She'd told him (quite creatively) where he could put his edicts of 'tact' and 'diplomacy' but he'd walked away satisfied knowing that that was just Tayuya's own delightful way of saying she'd acknowledged whatever she'd just been told. It wasn't a promise to obey, but it was pretty damn close.

And she'd been fairly sure that she would behave…or at least not snarl at the kunoichi. She was, she had decided, over it. Over the whole losing thing, over the whole nearly dying thing, over the whole having to rely on Kabuto's machines to breathe for a week afterwards because of the bitch with the fan thing – she'd only survived because she was like a bloody cockroach, even with a broken leg, six cracked ribs and severe internal bleeding: impossible to kill.

Good intentions were, of course, useless.

Because when she'd felt the weight of a gaze upon her and looked up to see that spiky-headed, shadow-wielding loser and then the blonde woman with those ridiculous cluster of tiny ponytails staring at her, the world gained something of a red tint. Her right leg – the one shattered in the fight nine years ago – ached with a sudden ferocity and her nose picked up the sharp, coppery tang of the blood her too-tightly clenched fingers were drawing from her palm with their nails.

There were moments in life when people sank down to their basic instincts. The human body was uniquely suited to emergency situations; sucking blood from some areas and shunting it to others, adrenaline injections, the shutdown of unnecessary brain functions. In response to negative stimuli (the hard line of a fan, green eyes, dusky blonde hair) the body was entirely capable of practically _devolving _until its only concerns were fight or flight. And Tayuya didn't do flight.

Were she being honest, she hadn't precisely meant to let her chakra surge like that – starting a crucial diplomatic meeting with what could quite possibly be counted as an act of hostility hadn't been in the plan – but there were some things in life that you couldn't control and her reaction to the woman who'd nearly killed her _and so casually _was not of the calm-and-rational variety.

And since her chakra was flaring and her eyes were positively dangerous and her irrational fear translated itself into a spike in killing intent, it was probably fair that Temari too switched over into battle mode. The overly large fan was out and halfway on its way to unfurling itself in the Suna shinobi's practiced hands, Tayuya was reaching for her flute in response and the situation was speedily moving towards becoming a nasty one when it was abruptly halted.

Kidoumaru had always had ridiculously fast reflexes, ones he claimed he'd gained because Tayuya was so volatile most of the time. He'd kicked into action just about the time the two kunoichi spotted each other and the glob of web he'd hastily produced was spat at Temari's fan, effectively sealing it, just as he'd grabbed Tayuya. Two sets of arms went into restraining her – one around her torso, the other's hands covering her mouth – while the remaining pair held its hands up in the universal gesture of 'please don't shoot me.'

Around them, shinobi were tense and on edge, wary as to see just where this was going and ready to aid their respective comrades. Kidoumaru's large hands kind of restricted her view, but she could see the scruffy blond in the Kage robes looking pissed off as all hell and his redheaded counterpart looking intent, but not overly worried.

"Peace," Kidoumaru said. For good measure, he repeated it. "Peace. She didn't mean it." Tayuya wanted to yell, to insist that she had meant it, just that she hadn't meant to _mean_ to do it. His large, warm hands stifled her words though and she had to settle for biting him. Kidoumaru gave no sign of having noticed. "She's just a little…difficult."

'_Bastard!'_

"Kidoumaru, kindly control your pet, please."

Tayuya knew that voice. Kidoumaru did as well. Both looked towards where Uchiha Sasuke stood looking cold, haughty and very much a shinobi of the Leaf. Tayuya's eyes narrowed balefully at their once-comrade, but Kidoumaru was more tactful than she, a better actor too. "Sasuke-san," he said smoothly and she felt the passage of air near her shoulder signifying the incline of his head. "How pleasant to see you again."

The Uchiha's reply, when it came, was a chilly one. "Hardly pleasant when Tayuya seems determined to cause a riot within minutes of your arrival." His cool gaze raked over the two of them and, irritated, Tayuya struggled against the iron cage Kidoumaru's wiry arms made around her. "You're late."

"There were some delays in crossing the border," Kidoumaru explained. A single finger flexed warningly against Tayuya's bicep and the firebrand stepped on his foot by way of retaliation. Again, he paid her no heed, instead turning his diplomat's smile and tone to Temari who was gingerly examining the gummy web that glued her fan closed. "My apologies." Whether he was referring to the web or to Tayuya was unclear. "Our intentions were not to cause trouble." Temari looked sceptical. "She was merely…surprised to see you." It was different knowing your enemy was around by word of mouth and seeing them in the flesh, fully capable of hurting you once more.

Her suspicion didn't exactly disappear, but it faded and Tayuya watched the Suna kunoichi dip her head in acceptance. "She was probably as surprised to see me as I was to see her." It wasn't friendly, but it was a gesture of neutrality at least and it seemed to satisfy Kidoumaru because he leant down to place his lips by Tayuya's ear.

"Ready to behave now?"

She rolled her eyes, but the desire to be free overrode that to make a snide comment and she nodded. He carefully unwound his many limbs from around her, satisfied with her answer, but he did wave Jiroubou up to stand beside her, so his estimation of her hold over her temper wasn't one hundred percent.

Technically, Kidoumaru didn't outrank either of them, but it was generally acknowledged to let him take the lead in…delicate situations. He had the tact Tayuya didn't possess or want and the verbosity Jiroubou found difficult in the presence of anyone other than their small, select group. In the end, it was easier to let him be the one to bow to the gathered leaders and their aides with not a whit more or less respect than they were entitled to.

"Hokage-sama, Kazekage-sama," he started and the refinement to his voice made itself more obvious now that he was acting in an official capacity. "We apologise for our lateness and greet you in the name of Otogakure." The usual ceremonial bow was perfect coming from him, graceful too and in a way that Tayuya had never quite grasped. She scowled and Jiroubou's heavy hand was a warning weight on her shoulder.

She didn't much care for the pomp and circumstance of politics – it didn't interest her in the slightest – so her eyes drifted over to where both Shikamaru and Temari were watching her. The man she'd practically beaten and the woman who'd taken that victory had taken from her. Not two of her favourite people in the world.

Neither was the ink haired and eyed man who stood with the Konoha party. Uchiha Sasuke, traitor extraordinaire. On two counts. Anger flared up in her again and Jiroubou squeezed her sharply. Tayuya shrugged him off brusquely and returned to her contemplation of the man who had brought the Sound Four up to its titular volume after Sakon and Ukon had died on that harrowing mission to fetch Sasuke in the first place. He'd appeared content. Not happy, never happy, but capable and certainly full of a desire to improve and a willingness to use the experience that being part of the Sound Four offered him to reach that. He wasn't much of a team player and had, more than anything, led them, but Tayuya had gritted her teeth and borne it because such were Orochimaru-sama's orders. They'd operated surprisingly well together, ignoring Tayuya and Sasuke's frequent clashes and his impatience with Jiroubou. He and Kidoumaru seemed content to leave each alone else the spider-nin would have needled him in the same way Tayuya had done whenever she felt particularly restless or hateful or insignificant.

He'd set his snakes on her a few times, but that had come to be both normal and expected.

They'd settled down into a routine of sorts, functional in its discord. They had worked, they had been successful and Orochimaru-sama had been pleased. Fulfilment had been something of a foreign concept to her, but she hadn't refused it. Otogakure had prospered as a village, growing in strength and size while remaining a mystery, shifting bases periodically. They were truly a hidden village and Tayuya, not having known anything better growing up, was almost content to get older and stronger with each passing day. She wasn't the sort to be happy, but she didn't want to leave.

Then had come that mission to Water country when her functional little world had come falling down.

The Hokage was responsible for that: his little pink chit as well. Uzumaki fucking Naruto, who'd never really been all that far from Sasuke's mind had stolen him back with the help of the Haruno chick and Orochimaru-sama had been displeased, very, very displeased.

These were dark memories to which Tayuya didn't even want to give the time of day to and she wrenched her mind away angrily. She certainly wasn't happy to be here in the company of the far too close Sand and Leaf, but she hadn't been willing to be left behind…

…and Kidoumaru expected her to behave. Her shoulders slumped a minute amount in frustration and resignation and she muttered a few favourite curses under her breath, wrapping them around herself like the security blanket she'd never had.

Tayuya hadn't expected Kidoumaru to hear her and she certainly hadn't expected him to be sympathetic, but he turned towards her anyway. "Tayuya, Jiroubou. Why don't you go and organise the genin? Temari-san and Kankurou-san will be showing us to our assigned quarters soon enough."

She could have quibbled and she usually did so because he expected it, but Tayuya was uncomfortable under all these eyes so she nodded curtly and stumped off, Jiroubou following like an oversized shadow.

Her own genin team swarmed over as soon as they saw her approach, all wide-eyed and, well, ten.

Their interest was actually welcome distraction, not that she let them in on the fact. Indeed, she glowered at them and dealt out a suitable head-smack when the taller boy asked too enthusiastically why she'd been trying to kill the blonde lady with the fan.

"I wasn't trying to kill her, you prat," Tayuya told him with the casual abuse she reserved for people she didn't actively dislike.

The girl crowded into her personal space and Tayuya frowned, but didn't banish her. "You seemed rather angry at her, Tayuya-sensei. And Kidoumaru-san sent you away."

"He did _not _send me away," the redhead pronounced through gritted teeth. "Dai, Seiichi – pick up your bags. We'll be leaving soon." Dai, pale with light brown hair, obeyed promptly, but her team's troublemaker dallied about, still hitting her with a barrage of questions. The fates had been laughing when they'd arranged which children Tayuya would be assigned as her first genin team. Dai and Kaede, a peaches-and-cream complexioned blonde, were well behaved, judicious and astonishingly polite – ironic given their sensei's lack of respect for manners and exceedingly foul tongue. Seiichi was polite only when he remembered to be, but was still ridiculously cheerful.

They were enough to give Tayuya a migraine with their diametrically opposing personalities to her own.

They were also young in comparison to many of the genin teams here, but most of the Sound candidates were – a direct result of their need for chuunin and the fast-track programme they'd been put in. All three were rather talented, even for fast trackers, and Tayuya didn't expect them to humiliate her too badly otherwise they would be Having Words after this. Having Physical Words.

She was a tyrant and they were her little soldiers, one two three, and (oddly enough and for reasons unfathomable) they adored her. Even when she was cranky and angry and chased them off with foul language to make coffee for her.

And that was kind of…nice.

She smacked Seiichi again and he whined in protest, but finally picked up his pack. By that point, the sand-bitch and her brother were approaching, presumably to play the gracious hosts and lead them to where they were staying (under firm guard, Tayuya remembered.)

The kunoichi from Oto with hair like fire let her lip curl a little, but she also let her genin fall in line behind her – Dai, then Kaede, then tall Seiichi to finish them off.

"Remember to be nice, Tayuya-sensei, otherwise Kidoumaru-san won't be happy," Kaede whispered at her, trying to be helpful.

"Shut up, brat."

Tayuya could feel the blonde girl smile even without seeing it. For a moment, she was almost tempted to do the same. Then she remembered she was hardcore and grimaced.

It was time to play nice.

oOo

The Oto party were betting behind Tayuya's back on just when she'd slip up fully. The smart money was on during the first few days when formal functions would drive her mad. For all that she was temperamental, the shinobi from Sound quite liked their firebrand leader (one of them, anyway) but made sure that they liked her from a distance – Tayuya didn't approve of fondness, not really.

Kidoumaru was as much a gambler as he was a genius and he had the added advantage of years of Tayuya-wrangling under his belt. _His _bet was on the start of the actual chuunin exams and Jiroubou agreed with him because both of them had suffered the attentions of a competitive Tayuya.

The two of them shared an amused glance as she grudgingly followed their guides with her ducklings in tow.

Bringing their female companion to Suna may not have been the wisest thing to do, but it was bound to be pretty damn entertaining.

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

Yes, the chapters are still pretty short. But it's just because the scenes right now are short – I want to keep the story pace up while negating my usual habit of waffling. Short scenes keep things flowing, get things progressing and it seems to actually suit my writing style – cranking out four thousand word chapters like I usually do actually takes far more than double the time I take writing a chapter with half the word count. Usually, by the fourth chapter in any of my stories, writing has become a chore, whereas with Secondhand Faith the chapters are still flowing freely.

I choose this method any day – it leaves me less stressed, particularly with this being my last year of school and there being a need for me to actually _work_.

I like writing Tayuya, I shan't deny that. I particularly like turning her into a grey-character, not completely black or white in motive. Hell, I'm fond of doing that with most characters since I have an innate dislike of absolutes. When I write a character, I want readers to dislike parts of them and like parts of them. My problem with too many fanfictions is that their protagonist is always portrayed favourably (even in their bad times) and is designed to receive sympathy, while the antagonist is written to be disliked.

Shades of grey, people, shades of grey.

P.S.

I get upset when Word tries to Auto-correct 'Tayuya' to 'Toyota.'

**In next week's episode…**

_Sakura and Ino had coerced her into a kimono. She wasn't entirely sure how they'd done it, but they'd managed anyway._


	5. Listening Blind

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** Listening Blind

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG _again_.

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her. Even more italics abuse.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

If anything could be said of Suna it was that they could throw a banquet. Tenten couldn't imagine how much time had gone into preparation for a single evening's meal, not with her allergies to tasks such as flower-arranging and anything culinary. Who even had enough matching low tables to seat a hundred guests, huh? Where did they get the wood, anyway? Trees didn't exactly grow in the desert, not ones that provided the smooth, rich mahogany finish and they _must _have been expensive to import.

Sitting in this lavish yet tastefully understated dining room made Tenten feel like the country girl she was. The daughter of a weapons storeowner, she hadn't ever really had the opportunities to wine and dine with nobility, not with Konoha's relaxed attitude to that sort of thing. So finding herself ensconced in a room with various daimyo, _three _Kages and numerous high-ranking shinobi almost made her feel like an impostor.

Sakura and Ino had coerced her into a kimono. She wasn't entirely sure _how _they'd done it, but they'd managed anyway. It seemed to be expensive, with the cream and gold outer layer (bamboo-patterned) over the pale green of the inner kimono and she felt awkward in it. Ino was suitably ravishing in dark blue shot with silver and Sakura looked elegant in her crane-printed one but, then again, neither of them had an _eye-patch _to ruin the effect.

Tenten ran her fingers over it – a nervous habit. As eye-patches went, it was one of her best in that it wasn't torn or blood-stained, but it wasn't exactly something you found within the pages of those high couture magazines she attempted to read sometimes. Tenten liked feeling feminine, liked feeling pretty, but was practical enough to turn towards functionality instead of fashionable as a deciding factor in her outfits.

A kimono she was now discovering was not practical or functional. It had space for weapons since there was so much cloth in which to hide them, but the folds and ties and _painfully tight obi _restricted her movement enough to make her uncomfortable, uneasy in the way many warriors were when they were handicapped by the situation at hand out of necessity.

And, yes, according to the wise and implacable words of both Ino and Sakura a kimono _was _a necessity at an event like this. Tenten didn't want to show up Konoha, did she? Not when the jounin had been invited to such a high-profile affair. Tenten had grudgingly admitted that, no, she didn't want that. And, they'd wheedled, Yuugao-san was wearing a kimono as well, so it couldn't be all bad.

Yuugao-san, Tenten had wanted to point out, was tall and elegant with hair down to here and legs up to there. Yuugao-san was graceful in a kimono, like a gazelle or a peacock. Tenten was sturdy and straight-looking like a donkey. A cute little donkey with deep eyes and soft hair, but a donkey all the same. Ino and Sakura hadn't got the metaphor and hadn't budged either, so here Tenten was, in a kimono and worrying about exact dinner etiquette.

The pair of them shouldn't have been allowed to conspire together. Ever. It just wasn't fair to the rest of the world.

"Stop fidgeting."

Tenten had long since learned that Neji could speak without moving his lips and, tonight, he was using those subterfuge skills to keep her from cocking up immensely. Nephew of a clan head that he was, Neji actually knew how to eat lobster bisque appropriately and where to put his napkin and, most importantly, didn't fidget when his legs went numb from kneeling at a low table for a nine course meal. In fact, Tenten fathomed, his legs probably didn't even _go _numb.

Perhaps blue blood didn't circulate in quite the same way as that of commoners…

"Sorry," she murmured, keeping her lip movement to the minimum. "My legs hurt."

"…are you a ninja or not?"

Tenten wanted to scowl at him and was frustrated by her inability to do so. She settled for biting down on her spoonful of sweet horse-chestnut ice cream a fraction harder than necessary. The only result was that she gave herself brain freeze.

"I'm not as used to this sort of thing as you are," she murmured, willing the painful ache behind her eyes away.

Neji relented somewhat, eating his own dessert neatly while somehow keeping his long, trailing sleeves under control. Oh for Hyuuga grace. "Relax. It's the last course."

Tenten sighed, relieved.

"Of course, there's the entertainment afterwards."

"_What_?" She hissed that a bit louder than she'd intended and felt an embarrassed flush stain the back of her neck when she received some curious looks. Ino flashed her a warning look from the opposite line of tables that helped make up the long, three-sided rectangle set up before returning to flirting merrily with the Suna nin she was sitting next to.

Neji carried on looking casual and elegant in the way that made her hate him a little. Eyes rolling, she lowered her voice to an appropriate level. "What do you mean by 'entertainment'?"

"I mean the spectacles that the hosts usually provide to amuse their guests and aid digestion."

"You know what would aid my digestion? _Being allowed to walk around._"

Neji smirked. It was a tiny, miniscule thing carefully hidden behind his teacup, but it was very obvious to Tenten. He gave her time to fume a little ('_infuriating, elegant, _graceful_ Hyuuga'_) before replying. "I believe the national dances of Suna are quite intriguing. I presume the dancers will be kind enough to do the walking for you."

Since she couldn't voice them, Tenten had to merely _think _curses very hard at her irritatingly unruffled friend.

He did, aggravatingly, prove to be right. After the serving girls (who, by the way, _were _allowed to walk. And move. And breathe sans a tight obi.) cleared away the remnants of the last course, the reason for the horseshoe arrangement of the tables became clear. Opposite the raised dais on which the three Kages and the daimyo were sitting, instruments were being set up – a koto, several long pipes and a strange, pear-shaped stringed instrument that resembled Whirlpool country's lute.

Interested in spite of the pins and needles in her lower calves, Tenten leaned forwards. And promptly retreated backwards again, blushing, when the dancing girls entered the scene. Tenten was, in her own environment, a sensible young woman who had learned to be remarkably accepting during her time on a team with both Gai and Lee. She had (foolishly) believed, that nothing could shock her anymore, not after the training-in-a-loincloth-phase they'd gone through.

She was wrong.

The garments the girls were wearing barely seemed to amount to even a loincloth in terms of actual fabric. The rest seemed to be made up of sequins and tassels, jingly bits and dangling bits and bits that may well have been bells. Their presence on the outfits was explained when the music started up and, to the heady tempo and rippling melody, the girls began to dance.

Much of it went without viable description, but Tenten's conclusion was that she'd previously thought _she _was bendy.

She stopped blushing about halfway through and actually began to enjoy the fast-paced music and the rhythmic undulations that seemed to be the main premise of the dance. Kiba and Lee certainly seemed to be enjoying it; the former for the girls and the latter for the music and possible ideas for future training sessions. Neji had his political face on so she couldn't read him.

At some point, the dancing dissolved into a single girl singing. The tune was long and melismatic, wordless, but startlingly ornate. It wasn't until the third go round that Tenten realised the girl had been singing the same melody with slight variations each time so subtle were the changes. Tenten was suitably entranced.

"Legs still hurting?" Neji wanted to know.

"Shh," Tenten hushed absently, not even sparing him a glance. "I think Temari-san's going to do something."

And indeed Temari-san was. The tall kunoichi proved that her fan could be decorative as well as deadly, performing a fan dance she said she'd learned on a visit to Rice country. Not to be outdone by his sister, Kankurou and some of his kabuki theatre friends demonstrated their skills with their puppets.

Then someone decided it was Konoha's turn and persuaded Ino to sing. She had a pretty voice when it soared up into the soprano ranges and it harmonised well with Chouji's surprisingly tuneful baritone as he joined in for the chorus. They went on to sing a popular marching song that several of the jounin joined in on and by then everyone was willing to share their talents. Lee demonstrated that, with enough perseverance, anyone could juggle and he kept an impressive twelve oranges in the air at once. Even Tenten joined in, marking an outline of swiftly thrown kunai around the ever-helpful Lee who was standing against a hastily procured screen. She and Yuugao also performed a sword dance – Tenten with her katana and her superior with a sword that she had taken up after the death of her lover, in memory of him.

Tenten and Yuugao, laughing and breathless after strenuous exercise in a _kimono_, were attempting to refuse requests for an encore when a previously silent Sai spoke out over the chatter in the room. The stiff and formal dinner had relaxed into something much more amiable and entertaining as the shinobi unwound, their mentality outweighing that of the various nobles present (who, in all actuality, seemed to be enjoying the show) so the noise was considerable, but his voice cut through it anyway.

"I would like to hear the girl with the flute play." Sai's polite manner of speech just managed to make the demand sound all the ruder and a surprised hush fell in the room. The dark-haired young man seemed unperturbed, his pasted smile firmly in place. "If we are sharing 'entertainment' in this manner, then this counts as a cultural exchange and I for one would like to hear something from these Otonin I've heard so much. An artist's talent should not go unappreciated." His smile widened alarmingly and Tenten winced as he added, confidingly: "I read that in a book."

If Tenten wasn't used to gatherings like this and worried about making a mistake, then Sai was a liability, pure and simple. An oblivious nature and an unhealthy lack of people skills made him dangerous, and Naruto looked like he wanted to throttle his once teammate; Sakura too.

More worrying than that was the rebellious look of the red-haired woman in question. Tayuya of the once infamous Sound Four had retreated behind her nose like an irate llama ready to spit and Tenten had already witnessed her obvious volatility.

Suddenly, the sai at the small of her back, the kunai up her sleeves and the cunning reel of garrotte wire wound around her throat didn't seem like anywhere near enough weapons to have on her…

The silence was broken by a laugh.

Like many, Tenten was surprised to see that it was the mulish kunoichi's companion, the one with six arms, doing the laughing. Tenten felt Neji frown minutely more than she saw it, but his response was tangible all the same.

"Tayuya would be delighted to play," Kidoumaru replied, seemingly having no qualms about answering for his comrade. "Oto is all for this…cultural exchange." His last comment seemed to be aimed more at a rebellious-looking Tayuya than at the gathered ensemble, but it was a pretty little speech all the same, delivered with just the right amount of sincerity and charm.

Tenten watched as the two Otonin had a silent battle of wills and, in the end, it was the young woman who won out. Her eye roll had little place here in this world of tact and gentility, but no one was about to reprimand her, so she got away with it. She stood, reticence in every line of her body, and made her way to where all the other performers had, by mutual consensus, stood. Tenten now saw just how Sai had been able to label Tayuya as girl-with-flute because the older kunoichi pulled it from the small of her back where it had been stuck in her obi.

(She frowned briefly, not at all impressed with Sand-security who either hadn't spotted the flute or hadn't had the intelligence info to place it as the primary weapon it was. Konoha had detailed biographies on all of the major Otonin – mostly compiled with Sasuke's knowledge, but some from nine years back and some from the final and greatest clash six years ago when Sound had been thoroughly trounced. Either way, Suna should have known better than not forbidding its presence in the same room as the nobility.)

The way she frowned down at the battered cylinder in her hands reminded Tenten of the way Neji looked when he was writing; half annoyed at not being able to find the exact word, phrase or clause to convey the intangible concept in his mind, half lost in the secret and private place within his mind where words rhymed and sentences had rhythm and creativity lay dripping from the end of an ink-laden brush. It was a secret that Neji wrote, of course, one Tenten was sworn to keep to herself under pain of being ruthlessly and immediately kaiten'd. Hyuuga Neji was tough and, while refined, didn't do anything as poetic as _write_.

Instead, he used a pen name. And rued the day Tenten's mother had never taught her to knock before entering a room.

It seemed that Tayuya had finally decided upon a suitable piece because, with only a brief glare back at Kidoumaru (that didn't bode well for him afterwards when there weren't witnesses) she rubbed her fingers over the burnished metal of her flute (oncetwicethrice, like some sort of ritual), flicked her long hair over her shoulder and lifted it to her lips.

When Tenten was younger, much younger, she and her mother and her father had lived in a cosy little house at the edge of the forest and, at night when she lay abed, the wind would move through the trees. And instead of filling her mind with creaking tree monsters and witches with mossy hair and twig-thin fingers who came tap-tap-tapping on the windows of little girls in their sleep, the high, breathless noise sounded like the forest sighing. The trees whispered their secrets to her and they were behemoths of the woodland, ancient and wise, so their stories were ancient and wise as well in a language she couldn't quite understand, but maybe she would when she was younger.

Of course, age robbed a child of innocence and soon Tenten was a harder, sterner version of what she'd once been – more interested in sitting up late and studying scrolls than in listening to the forest sing. After that there was blood on her hands and between her legs and she'd thought the music of the trees lost to her.

Tayuya's music wasn't the same – not quite as airy, not quite as ethereal – but it had the same quality to it, the same sense of a language without definable words. Mystery, grace, whatever you wanted to call the quality of the world that went back to when it was new and fresh and pure. Tenten wasn't good with music – she listened to whatever buzzed out of her radio, hummed along with television jingles – but she didn't have the classical ear of Neji or the lively voice of Lee. Before this, Tenten might have said she liked music.

Listening to Tayuya, Tenten hazarded that, now, she might just understand it.

The melody was something in the higher registers, slow and stately with a softness to it despite the pitch. Like a lullaby, but more regal. Tayuya picked the notes out delicately, deftly even, but her eyes were half-closed and not in an my-art-is-deep-like-the-ocean kind of way, but an if-I-ignore-you-this'll-go-faster way. She didn't seem the sort to like public-playing anyway.

Or public, period.

"Ah," Neji murmured knowingly. "'The Woman who Walks with Dragons.'"

"Hmm?"

"The piece. It is an old one. Quiet."

Not that he'd been the first to break the silence, not at all.

Tenten hmph'd mentally, but her attention was already drifting back to Tayuya. The flute was repeating the opening passage, but in a different key and a much stronger manner, Tayuya's fingers moving with practiced ease in complicated flickers that Tenten, as a weapons specialist, understood the difficulty of producing. The haunting tones she definitely couldn't duplicate, certainly not with the same amount of _emotion _behind them. Which, in its existence, was surprising considering the general consensus that Tayuya didn't seem capable of anything other than anger or sullen irritation. The thought made her want to laugh, but the music's demand to listen won out in the end. In spite of her anxiety over the situation at large, a slightly dreamy smile fought free of her manners.

And then promptly disappeared, chased away by a startled look when the redhead pulled chakra decisively towards herself. Tenten experienced a brief moment of panic that they'd been lulled into a false sense of security and was trying to decide which of her hidden weapons would work best when the reason came apparent.

'_Oh. Wow.'_

The genjutsu Tayuya cast was a very localised one and of an illusory nature. Just a very solid illusory nature. The silver mist that had materialised in front of the flute-playing woman rapidly twined around itself and coalesced into the wraithlike figure of an elegant female. Dark-haired and pale-skinned with striking eyes, she could have been a female form of Sasuke – a fact not lost on Tenten. But she was too enchanted by the combination of music and genjutsu (what concentration that must take…) and the low, authoritative vibrato that had accompanied the woman's appearance to care unduly.

So while Tayuya played, the girl of mist and shadow danced. The tempo had picked up by now, notes seeming to ripple up a scale before falling right back down in a waterfall of sound. Long, black hair cloaked what appeared to be a nude body (though the figure was more mist condensed than human and any eroticism was avoided) tossing and twining and forming patterns in the air in a way the natural flow of hair could not. The woman stood upon thin air, tossing her head and throwing her arms out with her wrists bent back and fingers splayed and curved like the inside of a sea shell. She took delicate steps, intricate ones and silent silver bells moved at her ankles. The speed of that rise and fall melody picked up; so did the woman's pace. The music moved from dignified and haunting to something much more desperate – pleading, that was the word.

"Her lover wants to leave her."

The low-voiced comment came from Neji, but Tenten couldn't quite bear to look away. She could see it now – the imploring cant of the mist-woman's head, the beseeching reach of slender arms, the entreat in the way her tiny feet moved. There was sorrow in both the dancer and the music, a terrified sadness that made your breath hitch and fingers clench. It wasn't a peaceful melody – indeed, it almost instilled anger within you at the unseen lover, the abandoner.

The crescendo was expected and came, gained the note of anger it had lacked when the listeners had felt it. It seemed like a natural progression in which the sentiment was shared as the music spread from person to person to player to ever-dancing woman.

"She turns to prayer. She talks to the gods."

The tune changed again, became something different, something quieter. It was lower, steadier and without the passion the previous measures had held, but something in Tayuya's breathing made it resonate more. This was a voice that held power and it dominated over the woman's movements – she paced now, like a caged beast, but her fury was quiet as she listened. Tenten had heard classical pieces where the instruments in an ensemble had seemed to talk to one another, but she hadn't experienced that conversational style on one instrument alone; certainly not with an illusion to drive the effect come. When the answer came in a higher, sharper tone, the woman shifted accordingly. Her movements were harsher now – less undulation, more weight behind them, more force. Then she was pacing and the 'gods' were answering – the same refrain as before, but more emphatic and still implacable.

"They tell her that anger will not gain her what she wishes, that anger born of hate will not induce change for the better."

In a sudden stop that blew the wind out of Tenten's sails, Tayuya paused. Ran her fingers over the flute. Watched as the woman sank to her knees like a puppet with her strings cut. Put her lips back to the flute. Played. The key was mournful this time, the technicalities of pitch and tempo low and slow accordingly. But more importantly, the music spoke of dejection and complete, utter loss in its secretive language.

Tenten wasn't the sort to cry in sad movies, so a piece of music and a bundle of chakra wouldn't move her to tears. But she could empathise, and she wondered about the power in a medium that could speak of human emotion and human tragedy so eloquently. She didn't have time to wonder because the music was shifting again, repeating that waterfall melody, but Tenten got the sense that it, for lack of a better word, _evolved _each time it came around. She didn't have the musical ear to pinpoint exactly how each repeat differed from the last, but she was aware of its gradual change, of its path from something that wallowed in sadness and flat, minor notes to a melody rife with determination – not happy, but full of grit and courage. The woman was dancing again and this one had more rhythm to it, a set pattern of steps that she traced over and over again with increasing intensity and speed each time.

The music ran races with itself, picked itself up and challenged it to running harder and faster each time. It twined around the woman whose hair swung out in sharp curves, stark against her pale skin. Her feet flickered, her arms gestured, her body bent like a bow and strained at the edges as she reached. What she reached for, Tenten didn't know, but the intent was obvious. The music showed no signs of peaking; instead, Tayuya's fingers moved in practiced panic from hole to hole, coaxing ferocity from its slim length, the pride and breathless elation that were reflected in the woman's whirling dervish motions.

And when Tenten's fingers gripped the fold of her kimono a little harder than necessary, that endless crescendo peaked and both the music and the woman erupted – the music into something pure and joyful and ringing while the woman exploded into silver mist that rapidly shot upwards in a sinuous, shining form. Up, up, up…

Tenten, whose weakness had always been for dragons and the fierce strength they represented, felt her breath catch a little when the winged beast spread its wings, opened its wings and screamed. The illusion made no sound, but the music spoke for it, peaking in ferocious, careless abandon. Nothing held back. It crested like a wave and, instead of falling, hung there. Hung there until the final echoes of the notes drifted away and the flute's mistress released it from the dominion of her lips. Her hands dropped and it hung at her side heavily; simple, plain steel once more.

She heard Neji lick his lips. "She is enlightened. She sees the truth. And the gods free her from her pain." His chest rose and fell once. "A good rendition."

The music didn't break her heart. It didn't fill her to brim with emotion. It didn't make her see heaven. But Tenten wondered whether what she had heard before had really been music and, quietly, marvelled that some kunoichi with her shoulders set awkwardly, her hair unruly and her eyes unfriendly, could coax such sentiments from a barrel of metal.

The pins and needles in her aching legs suddenly seemed of little consequence.

Beside her, Neji, who had always looked condescendingly at her when she failed to understand some comment of his on music, literature or poetry, had the decency not to smirk too pointedly. "And now you know."

And she did. Tenten had been listening blind and the heavens were playing tricks on the world if it had taken an enemy to open both her ears and the needed windows in her mind.

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

/Embarrassed./ I got words-y and prose-y. Sorry. But, silver lining and all, wordiness makes for longer chapters (even if I'm abusing adverbs again.)

I know I seem to be picking random characters for chapter point of views and I should have an argument/explanation/convincing excuse for that. But I don't because it really is random. There is no method to my madness. I have ideas for chapters and whichever character provides an entertaining/effective view-point gets picked up and written with. I'm an irresponsible writer like that…

I think I talked about music too much, but the scene ran with me since my image of it was so specific and I wrote it all in one sitting. After that, no amount of puzzling would provide me with an alternative way of portraying it, so you're stuck with my clumsy original. I'm a flautist myself, so any lack of correct musical terms or interpretation is Tenten's lack of knowledge, not my incompetence. xD

We all know that Tayuya sekritly plays classical when no one's listening and since she can't exactly blare out ninja rock at a formal dinner (or on a flute for that matter – power chords are a requisite) she had to play something airy-fairy and all that. (Well, it makes sense in my mind, at least.)

And, on an un-Secondhand Faith related note, I have some fics to pimp. Firstly, anything by **Sycogerl64** who is far too sweet and write ridiculously poignant fanfiction. I'm particularly in love with **Kicking up Sand **and **The Nightingale**, as well as her Team Gai work. The first thing I ever read of hers was **Mistake**, a wonderful study on Neji. Her writing is always so plausible and believable and _heartbreaking _(and Temari calls Neji Bright-eyes!) Read. I command you to. And tell her that her work's better than mine. xD

Then, if you like FF or Pretear stuff, go and browse around **DarkRaven1990**'s profile. She is my lovely Rhiannon and my dirty mistress. We also go to school together and is the most supportive, lovely person I know even if she does make me feel like a dwarf next to her. Anything you read over there, I've probably seen being written in person.

**In Next Week's Episode…**

"_Her flute didn't sound anywhere as nice as that when she was using it to fling zombies at me."_


	6. And Baby Makes Three

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** And Baby Makes Three

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG-13 – liberal useage of some of Tayuya's favourite words.

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

"Her flute didn't sound anywhere as nice as that when she was using it to fling zombies at me," a vaguely irritated Shikamaru muttered, but Sakura was only half listening. After the applause had faded and Tayuya had returned to her seat it had been announced that the formal dinner was finally over. A sea of people and brightly patterned cloth shimmered before her and, in all of that, she was looking for Tenten.

She didn't have time for Shikamaru's complaints about days gone by.

A slant of cream and gold shadowed by green arrested her vision and, as decorously as possible, Sakura dove into the crowd, fought through it and arrived at Tenten's side by slipping past a large, burly Rain nin. The taller woman was frowning, lifting up onto the balls of her feet to peer into the crowd. She was clearly looking for someone since her intent was so focused that she started slightly when Sakura tugged on her long sleeve to grab her attention.

"Oh, hey," she said, brown eyes already sliding back to the crowd. "Did you see where she went?"

Sakura was confused. "Where who went? Temari?" Tenten was in Suna after all and each visit, without fail, she challenged the older kunoichi to a battle that she invariably lost.

"No," Tenten replied absently. "The Sound girl."

This pronouncement didn't do anything to lessen Sakura's bemused state. Out of all the Konoha kunoichi in her immediate age range, Tenten was probably the most pragmatic, the most sensible. Wondering just why the relatively sane Tenten wanted to find a woman who had nearly killed a friend of theirs while subverting another fitted neatly into the realms of 'does not compute.' "Why?" she asked carefully.

"So I can…" A ghost of a frown marred Tenten's forehead with its wrinkles. They deepened as her thought processes did. "…actually, I don't know."

Sakura, struck by a notion, snickered behind a hand. "It was the dragon, wasn't it?"

Tenten flushed, embarrassed at having been caught. Her fondness for the mythical beasts were well known and, at various points in the year when gifts were in order, her nearest and dearest showered her with draconian models to add to her sizeable collection. Part of the rosy blush stemmed from the awkward realisation that she'd been so completely won over by a piece of music and subtly so.

When Tenten was embarrassed (which wasn't often, thankfully) she dithered in a most Hinata-esque manner, squirming in on herself and Sakura eventually took pity and reserved any and all teasing for much later. "Come on. We've been asked to help Suna when it comes to escorting the Otonin around. If you're quick, we can 'happen' upon Tayuya and you can fangirl quietly while we walk her back to the Sound quarters."

Tenten's flush deepened and something in her dilated pupils suggested she wanted the comforting presence of steel in her palms, but she nodded all the same. "You're getting a real kick out of this, aren't you?"

"Yup," Sakura chirped cheerily. "First I get to dress you up, then I get to watch you go all gooey over a piece of music because it had an over-sized lizard in it."

"_Dragon_."

"You're so cute sometimes."

The older girl rolled her eyes in exasperation, but knew a lost cause when she saw one. "Move it or we'll lose her."

They didn't. The shock of red hair stood out in a crowd, as did the multiple limbs of her companion. Kidoumaru looked at them, a little resigned since he knew their intent – Otonin were forbidden from wandering around Suna alone – but smiled all the same. It was slightly eerie smile, wide at the edges and ever so feral, but courteous overall. "Ladies?"

Sakura returned the smile in like. "Kidoumaru-san, Tayuya-san – Tenten and I are here to act as your escorts tonight."

The general set of Tayuya's features remained the same, but enough shifted minutely that Sakura knew the kunoichi found this degrading and, in a way, she empathised – she too would have been humiliated by this obvious show of distrust if she'd been powerless to refuse it. And while they were Otonin, she was at least a little empathic and could make this as graceful an encounter for both parties as possible.

"Suna is a beautiful city at night so it's nice to have someone to show you around."

Tayuya didn't bother disguising this scornful look. "I doubt we'd get lost – I was fucking born here."

Luckily, reports from Sasuke had warned Sakura in advance that Tayuya's foul language wasn't so much an insult as a personal idiosyncrasy. Like Naruto's verbal 'dattebayo' habit, or Lee's over-fondness for green spandex. You just had to tune it out.

But that last comment of hers had evoked genuine interest. "Really?"

She gained a curt nod as an answer, but it was enough.

"Wow – I hadn't realised you were a native." In retrospect, her hair gave it away – red was characteristic of Wind country. Sakura's own mother had been of Wind descent, but born in Konoha and it had been that red hair and her father's white which had given birth to her own shocking pink.

Tayuya snorted and pulled her wrap more securely around her bare shoulders – Oto's budget clearly didn't cover the costs of the fabric-heavy kimono, so the kunoichi was dressed in something less modern and more popular with civilians. "It's not something I usually advertise."

Given that Orochimaru probably stole her, that was probably a sensible idea and Sakura let it be. If Sasuke hadn't mentioned it, then it hadn't been known to him in the three years he'd spent in Orochimaru's clutches (however voluntarily) and she filed it away to add to the data cards later on. For now, she could play the escort.

Outside, the air was chilly and Sakura felt its bite even through the many layers of her outfit. Tenten shivered – she'd never liked cold weather – but the two ninja from Sound seemed unbothered. Or were making a show of appearing so. The winds that picked up in the desert at night moaned overhead, but Suna's walls offered a degree of shelter so they could walk without moving air snatching at dangling sleeves or dress hems.

A natural order evolved as they walked with Tayuya and Tenten at the front and Kidoumaru and Sakura following. Tenten shot a suspicious look at her friend, clearly wondering if this had been engineered, but succumbing to curiosity was by far the easier path.

"Do you like classical music then?"

Tayuya just looked at her blankly so Tenten tried again, this time with more explanation (always useful.)

"The piece you played. Is it a favourite or is that your usual preferred style?"

"I play what I want to play," Tayuya replied shortly and Sakura was reminded of both Sasuke and Neji in their younger days – close-mouthed and not at all desiring conversation. But Tenten had softened Neji up (mainly through heartless and relentless application of Lee) and she could deal with rebuffs.

"It was lovely anyway. It almost seems like a good training exercise – balancing the manual dexterity and the consistency required to maintain an illusion like that." Tenten was either genuinely interested or a jolly good actor.

Whichever explanation was true, she seemed to have picked the right thing to say because some of the storms in Tayuya's dark grey eyes stilled until their skies were merely cloudy. "It's not for pussies who can't keep their chakra straight, that's for sure." Tenten nodded. "Of course," Tayuya carried on haughtily (arrogantly) "I don't need to concentrate to play."

Tenten only smiled in response. "And I don't need to concentrate to keep ten kunai in the air. I wonder whether it would work combined with weapons practice…"

"Almost undoubtedly," Kidoumaru broke in. "The skill sets are almost the same – it's all down to body memory in the end."

"Balancing unconscious processes with conscious ones and keeping the results the same." Sakura had to bring reflexology into it of course. "Conditioning your body into doing what you want it to do while concentrating on something else."

"And making it pretty damn entertaining at the same time." Kidoumaru flourished a theatrical hand in Tayuya's direction; she rolled her eyes scathingly. He appeared impervious to their 'damage - minus five hp' effect and ambled onwards, blithely smiling. "We're all so proud of our little flautist."

"_Who are you calling 'little', asswipe?_"

"Compared to Jiroubou, you _are _little."

"Compared to Jirou, you're a fucking miniscule spider. A _bacteria_."

"Bacterium. 'Bacteria' refers to more than one bacterium."

"Oh, shut the hell up."

Their pitter-pat bickering would probably have continued on, back and forth, were it not for the entrance of a harried looking woman with the Sound insignia emblazoned on a sash. She was closely followed by a gaggle of small children, seemingly ranging between seven and three years old plus Kiba, Akamaru and Kankurou who must have been on watchdog duty.

"Tayuya-san," the woman started breathlessly, tucking a loose wisp of hair behind her ear. "I thought the banquet would go on forever. Hisoka was fretting for you a little and I think he's running a fever – probably from the change in climate, but I…ah…thought you would like to know." She bowed hastily, clearly worried that she'd spoken presumptuously.

She needn't have worried. Tayuya ignored her rambling and bent down so that she could look into the face of the child at the forefront of the pack. The little boy looked solemnly up at her and then, deliberately, reached pudgy arms up towards her.

That surprised Sakura – Tayuya didn't seem the sort to whom children were attracted. Her surprise doubled when the older woman picked him up, hiking the child up on her hip so he could shove a thumb in his mouth and rest his temple against her neck.

Now the medic-girl was just plain bemused. Their records of Tayuya were more than six years old, dated back to when Sasuke had lived, breathed and eaten with her and her brethren, but Oto had been secular since then – a lot could change in half a dozen years. But what the old records did say of Tayuya was that she was sharp-tongued, swift to lose her temper and, in a fitting analogy, much like a particularly unpleasant mule when she didn't want to do something. Her loyalty and soul had been owned by Orochimaru (through fear, coercion or honest dedication – whichever) and she'd been quick to prove that through whatever methods necessary. She was, in a word, ruthless. Empathy hadn't risen very high in the order of her personal make up and it seemed unlikely that that would have changed in any amount of time, be it six years or sixty.

Which was why Sakura found it surprising that a child would look to the firebrand for comfort. "Who's the child?" she murmured to Tenten.

Tenten's apologetic shrug conveyed a confusion equal to Sakura's own, but Kidoumaru – ever the helpful one – provided the answer.

"That would be Hisoka." A beat. "Our son."

oOo

Tenten had always had a very clear view of how her life was going to go. She was going to be a chuunin by sixteen, a jounin by eighteen and, after that, a kunoichi of Tsunade-sama's standards. It was fairly typical (if somewhat hampered by losing an _eye _at seventeen, but she'd worked around that) and she'd been sedulous in her work towards meeting it.

Nowhere in the equation did children factor. Or a relationship for that matter.

Loved ones were messy – they were weaknesses upon which any of a shinobi's many enemies could prey and they made rather spiffy emotional hostages. If you happened to be a ninja who didn't belong to a clan and therefore wasn't expected to breed, having a child was a rare occurrence. Few kunoichi wanted to bring babies into their world – even fewer still wanted to be fertile so that, should a mission turn terribly wrong, they'd be forced to abort or bear their rapist's child.

Besides, ninja didn't live very long – having a child invariably meant leaving it parentless at a very early age. Another side effect of every shinobi's short life expectancy was that, on a whole, ninja were infamous for their promiscuity. You lived each moment as if it were your last so sexual encounters were, by civilian standards, shameless and remarkably casual. Love matches were known, yes, but it was more common to take comfort wherever you found it.

Tenten was very much of a view that a lover or a child formed a distraction and a liability – neither of which she wanted or needed. Contrary to rumours, she and Neji weren't conducting an illicit affair – funny how a little bit of training could start such gossip. And she'd long since been to a medicnin and had her tubes tied – no kids of her own for Tenten aside from the ones she taught at the academy.

So it was understandably disturbing to learn that Tayuya – 'I stole Sasuke, have the temper of a particularly pissy rattlesnake and can seal you into oblivion' Tayuya – was a mother. In a holding life within her for nine months, nurturing, _child holding _sort of way.

Tenten didn't have the words to acknowledge the idea of the kunoichi who would have slaughtered Shikamaru and then gone home to have tea with Orochimaru doing the whole Mommy thing.

Sakura, who had always been better at the diplomatic thing, did.

"Oh," she started. "I didn't realise the two of you were…uh…like that."

Just because she was better than Tenten didn't mean she was infallible.

Tayuya gave the pink-haired girl a sour look. "We're not," she said in a tone that, if it had been any flatter, could have been used as an ironing board.

"We're not," Kidoumaru seconded.

"Oh," was Sakura's eloquent answer and Tenten echoed it mentally. This was a decidedly dodgy area and the child in question (red-haired and honey-skinned, but lacking his father's extra limbs) was probably going to end up being the elephant in the room if he _was _in fact a mistake from a casual encounter.

Revelation had six arms and a face with broad cheekbones and laughing eyes. "It's not like that," Kidoumaru assured them. "It's an Oto thing – we just have a lot of kids right now."

Kankurou looked over to where several wide-eyed children were introducing themselves to Akamaru and raised an eyebrow. "Really? I hadn't noticed."

Tenten followed his line of sight and chuckled. Kiba, hailing from a large family (Inuzuka women seemed to bear litters instead of babies), was used to children – liked them even – and the youngsters had sensed that, labelling him immediately as someone from whom rough housing and candies would be forthcoming. He already had a little girl tugging on his shaggy hair while a toddler who was only just walking sat on his feet and gazed up at him.

It was nice to know he took escort duty so seriously.

Tenten scanned the group, counted seven children including Hisoka who was quietly content to let his mother hold him, and allowed her own eyebrow to shoot up.

She was glad Sakura reached the same conclusion and asked the question she wouldn't have been able to voice.

"Kidoumaru-san, are these only the children of the kunoichi in your current party?" Sakura asked carefully.

"If what you're asking is whether their mothers are present, then yes. Naoko-san is just kind enough to look after the others as well as her own."

The long, awkward silence was enough to make Tayuya roll her eyes. The effect of her planting an impatient hand on her hip was somewhat hindered by the dozing youngling held on her other side. "Explain yourself, shithead," she told Kidoumaru without any apparent respect for the virgin ears of the children around her. "Right now they're wondering whether we fuck like bunnies all the time or whether we're raising them for some baby barbeque."

"We weren't!" Tenten broke in, sounding a little panicky since she had indeed been wondering something along those lines.

"I was," Kankurou said, just because 'helpful' had never really been in his vocabulary.

Kidoumaru crossed his arms. All six of them. "It's sensible, really. After the Sound-Sand-Fire wars, our population was down to twenty percent of what it once was." He said this clinically, as if the four ninja with him hadn't helped with that decimation. Tenten, for all that she wanted to be suitably cold-hearted and unsympathetic, felt a twinge of guilt. Neji would have been ashamed of this blatant evidence in favour of her possessing girly parts. (Emotional ones – what dirty minds you all have…) "In light of our need to repopulate, and fast, the decision was obvious and it was passed that all healthy kunoichi had to give birth to at least one child before they were twenty-one and that any women who had children after that were given grants, exemptions from taxes – that sort of thing." His smile was wry. "With the cash flow being what it was back then, the grants were much sought after."

Tenten, quite simply, didn't know what to say. She had turned twenty-three that spring and, while many shinobi didn't even live this long, considered herself young. Her life and body were very much her own to do with as she would.

And Tayuya, at a much younger age, had been forced by law to offer her body up for her country. Had been forced to give over nine months of her life to morning sickness, cravings and the general pains of being pregnant. Had been forced to give birth to a life she then had responsibility for whether she wanted to or not.

She cleared her throat uncomfortably, pressing a dry tongue (cactus, sandpaper, sharkskin) against her upper palate. "How old is he?" she asked Tayuya, doing her best to sound friendly and interested and not at all weirded out.

Tayuya looked at her for a moment, looking almost surprised that someone had asked, then let her face settle into the scowl Tenten was rapidly placing as her default expression when faced with a situation she didn't quite know how to handle.

It was her son, however sleepy he looked, who answered. "Four," Hisoka mumbled, rubbing a fist into his eye socket.

"Five in a month," Tayuya added, almost defiantly.

The defiant look, Tenten realised, was for Sakura. The medic had been frowning, her forehead creased in thought. Green eyes flickered beneath their lids, sharpening as Sakura surfaced from whatever ocean of thought she'd been immersed in. Seeing Tayuya's almost glare, she smiled. "Your demographic records must be interesting."

Yay for booksmarts.

"Positively fascinating," Kidoumaru drawled and, between them, they had escaped rousing Tayuya's temper any more than necessary.

Sakura flashed him a look – grateful, but guarded because he was still an Otonin even if they were all pretending to play nice – then turned to Tayuya. "Would you like me to look at him?" she asked as politely as was humanly possible.

When Tayuya looked dubious (Tenten figured her thought processes revolved around the rhetoric question of just why she'd want a foreign shinobi's help with anything at all) Kidoumaru neatly punctured her grumpy dignity. "Tayu, if the nice medicnin's offering help, it'd be good to take her up on it."

Tenten translated Tayuya's 'Shut up' as 'I heard you.'

Settled on the ground, Hisoka proved to be fairly small for his age (taking after his mother) and slim beneath the puppy fat of youth. He didn't seem shy, not with the calm way he gazed up at Sakura; just quiet.

Tenten knew Sakura to be an excellent medic, swift, efficient and not in need of someone else watching to verify this. She wandered over to where Kiba and Akamaru were entertaining the other Sound children, thinking a curse very hard when she nearly stumbled over the hem of her kimono – she didn't have quite the freedom of speech around children that Tayuya did.

"Having fun being molested?" she asked with a grin.

The Inuzuka looked up, eyes merry despite their angular quality. "I'm making sure I'm popular with the future pretty girls of the world." A little girl-child next to him giggled when Akamaru licked the nape of her neck. Kiba winked at her. "The ones I know now are getting old."

"Mature women don't like the inexperience of youth anyway," Tenten teased without malice, gaining a quick, wolfish grin in response. The young woman wasn't quite sure when or how it happened, but at some point along the way, she'd practically become the den-mother of the Rookie Nine. Yes, Sakura kept her boys in check, just as Ino did with hers, but Tenten was known for being solid and sisterly with enough spunk to deal with them all.

In short, you could be rude and crude in front of her and she wouldn't nag at you _too _much.

"You're popular enough anyway."

The brash young man chuckled, ruffling his 'admirer's' hair. "Kids are kids, even if they _are _Soundies."

Tenten winced theatrically at the colloquial and not altogether polite term for the Otonin. "Inuzuka Kiba: Master of PC-ness, as usual."

"I think I deserve a medal saying just that…"

If the Rookie Nine could be analogised as Tenten's siblings, then Kiba was the rambunctious, rowdy, rather odd-smelling little brother that she'd never particularly wanted, but was now coming to (finally) appreciate.

She'd just be happy if he failed in getting an STD before he was twenty-five, what with his crowd of avid lady friends.

"Whatever you say, kid." Tenten abused her year's seniority outrageously at the drop of a hat – it was all she had going on most of them at this stage.

Kiba didn't wince when a particularly sticky hand yanked on his ear – it was the norm for his daily wrestles with Akamaru to end up with blood drawn so this was nothing – merely disentangling it and distracting its owner with Akamaru's tail. His attention (not as flighty as Naruto's, but certainly fairly mobile) drifted towards where Sakura was examining the child, closely watched by an obviously suspicious Tayuya and a laid-back Kidoumaru.

"Crazy stuff, huh?" he murmured – though with his deep voice, it was more of a rumble. "How old must she have been when she had him? Eighteen? Nineteen?"

"Nineteen." Kiba looked at his older friend and she shrugged. "The kid's nearly five and our info puts her at twenty-four." She worried her lower lip with her incisors. "Pregnant at eighteen though."

"_Fuck_." Kiba managed to make the low expletive somehow sound impressed. "Not even legal to drink."

"No…"

A chill trickled down Tenten's spine, rolling over each individual vertebral nub like a drop of ice-melt. Little scared her - not pain, not death, not suffering – but she found herself nervous and fretful at the thought of her own body ever falling prey to a similar system.

Maybe Konoha would lose the next war.

Maybe she would be the one to survive.

Maybe it would be her body commissioned for broodmare duty.

The notion made her gut clench in unpleasant, twisty ways. She was dimly aware of Sakura telling the Otonin that the fever was a result of some bug he'd caught along the way (immune system weakened by travel) and that hydration was the most important thing, hydration and plenty of rest. She half-listened when Tayuya, after some prompting from Kidoumaru, thanked the pink-haired woman. She was even almost paying attention when the children were corralled reluctantly away from Kiba so he could go back to being an effective guard instead of their new best friend (because he had an _awesome _doggy.)

It took a slobbery kiss from Akamaru when she wasn't expecting it to wake her from her absent little reverie (not good for a ninja, definitely not good) and she scowled at Kiba because the grin he wore told her that he'd prompted such a sly and underhanded attack.

And because he'd just told his dog to ruin her best eyepatch, she felt the smack she gave him on the back of his head was perfectly justified.

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

I have been waiting to release this chapter for _forever_. It is officially the 'wtf?' chapter in which people quite firmly dub me as clinically insane. Yay for that?

So, it has been proved that my chapter lengths fluctuate ridiculously. I shall tentatively predict that they'll get longer as the story progresses, but don't hold me to it – I've never been particularly blessed with foresight.

I really like some parts of this chapter and despise others. Some of you are probably sitting there and hating the number of original characters that are in here already, but there are only a few that will make frequent appearances and even then they're not exactly important – secondary plot devices, they are. Details.

But, yes, I shall staunchly defend the concept of Tayuya having a child. In a military society after the near decimation of their population, forced child-bearing is feasible, even if the woman in question isn't particularly suited to motherhood. It can be guaranteed that Tayuya didn't adjust well – I can certainly see myself writing omake theatres or one-shots on the topic.

Now, a question for my readers? What do you want to happen in this story? No, really – I'm asking. Obviously, the main plot's decided and certain events are going to happen no matter what, but in terms of the little things, in terms of the subplots, is there anything that you particularly look for but can never find? Is there something, after having read SF up until this point, that you can see happening? Hit me with your theories and (while there are no guarantees) you may get your wish – a lot of the minor stuff in this story is decided quite randomly and I suppose reader input could shape it a little. I've already written up to chapter ten (yay!) but anything after that is fair game.

Just a thought. So, drop me a line in a review or by messaging me and I'll see what I can do. And, for this story, the crazier the better.

**In Next Week's Episode…**

…_it was a woman thing, Sasuke decided, this propensity towards fussing over all things baby-shaped. You could take a ball-busting, battle-hardened kunoichi, drop a baby in her lap, then watch as she cooed and cuddled it to death._


	7. Sand Gets Everywhere

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** Sand Gets Everywhere

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG-13 – still darling Tayuya's fault for language reasons.

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

"Honestly, can you imagine it? Someone like Tayuya being a mother – the mind just _boggles_."

Sasuke lounged in a chair, propping his head on an elegant, long-fingered hand. His eyes – all pupil and dark, dark iris – showed a glimmer of contentment if one knew what to look for, but for the most part he managed to look bored. And put upon.

His room had been invaded. Naruto's suite was by far the most luxurious, but it had somehow ended up being his to which the blond man and the pink-haired woman had gravitated. Sakura was sitting cross-legged on his as of yet un-slept in bed, a medical scroll she'd borrowed from Gaara's library lying neglected in her lap. Being of an equally talkative nature as Naruto and therefore infinitely more given to voluminous amounts of words than himself, Sakura was holding forth on the subject of enforced motherhood and just why someone who swore that much possibly wasn't the best mother material.

She glanced to her left at Naruto who was looking at her in a most openly contemplative manner. "Behave. No abusing your power so you can impregnate me."

"Aww…" His hangdog expression made Sakura laugh in spite of the scolding she was supposed to be doing. "You'd have been all cute and stuff with a big belly."

"As if I'd want a child at my age," Sakura scoffed. She paused, sobered and frowned slightly.

Naruto – while hardly tactful by nature – could be remarkably empathic sometimes, particularly when it came to Sakura. He reached over to place a large hand over her smaller one. "Never," he told her earnestly. "I'd never pass something like that. Not ever."

She smiled weakly at him, gnawing her lower lip in the undoubtedly feminine way that had once annoyed Sasuke and was now, while not endearing, at least a familiar and accepted part of their daily routine. "You would, if you really needed to – I just hope you never have to." Her smile gained a few watts more of energy and might have, on a good day, been enough to light a candle. Just. "Thank you."

Naruto snorted, scraping his fingers through hair that could be unruly as Sasuke's own. "They shouldn't have lost then." He sounded slightly sullen, a tone indicating a time in which his stubborn nature came into conflict with the side of him who reached out to those in need of a brash, blond idiot to free them from the traps circumstance and their own minds had them in.

"It is," Sasuke said, "a sound theory in times of war."

"It is," Sakura said, "a crime against women and it goes in the face of all sorts of human rights." Her lip curled, a pink and frail petal against the rest of her face. "However…it is, like Sasuke says, sound." She tossed her hair back out of her face in a swift and angry motion. "I hate having to be rational sometimes."

Her fingers picked out a syncopated rhythm against the stem of the scroll. Sasuke dipped his brows at that, but she paid it little heed. She was stubborn like that now, not so desperate for his approval as she was when she was twelve. And while that compliance would be useful sometimes, he much preferred her with a backbone to the weak, anxious creature she'd been before she'd practically knocked him over the head and dragged him back to Konoha, eagerly assisted by a Naruto who had grown exponentially in strength.

It hadn't seemed fair, two against one, but Sasuke – in truth – didn't really regret their having done so, however much he groused and glowered and grumped about.

He moved, breaking the air of stillness he'd worn in such contrast to Sakura's restless, repetitive motions. "Why does it matter?" It wasn't a subject he was particularly interested in despite the connections he had with those people, the years of his developing life that he'd spent with them. He tended to utilise the double-edged sword that was his forcibly narrow sight as a coping mechanism.

_Don't see it, don't remember it, don't think of the guilt and the blood and the blame…_

So. He didn't think of Tayuya much. Or any of them really. He had bigger, better things to pretend to be grumpy and glare-y about.

Most of the bigger, better things were currently in his room, making nuisances out of themselves. Sakura shrugged and made a point of returning to studying her scroll. Her pretence, however, didn't last long. "Do you…" She hesitated, then braved onwards. "Do you think she'd have made a good mother?"

…it was a woman thing, Sasuke decided, this propensity towards fussing over all things baby-shaped. You could take a ball-busting, battle-hardened kunoichi, drop a baby in her lap, then watch as she cooed and cuddled it to death. He was twenty-two and male – it was a given that he had no idea how to answer that sort of question.

Predictably, he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, as if in annoyance instead of awkwardness. "She's a ninja. I don't think any of us are really cut out for the parent thing." He found himself vaguely irritated by Sakura's dubious expression and her insistence on talking about Tayuya. "It doesn't really matter if she didn't have a choice about it – the kid seemed fine, didn't he?"

"Yes…"

"Then she's gotten her act together and is remembering to feed it." Sasuke pushed his bangs out of his eyes. "Let's focus on our own kids. What time do things start tomorrow?" He glanced at Naruto and willed him, for once, to be helpful and _change the fucking subject_.

Naruto, with uncharacteristic wisdom and tact, complied.

"Ten. Apparently Gaara doesn't like early mornings." The blond cracked a grin and turned to Sakura. "How's Ino?"

Suitably distracted, Sakura laughed. "Hysterical. You know how much she secretly dotes on her team."

Sasuke observed as she and Naruto dove into a friendly debate over whether Ino's genin team would pass or not ('They may not pass, but they'll be the best-dressed team there.') It was a subject holding little interest for him since he didn't hold Ino in particularly high regard. Sakura he would kill for, even back before she'd grown up and ceased to be _too_ annoying, but Ino would always be loud, obnoxious and blonde – traits he only put up with one particular person. He tuned them out – a skill easily attained through practice and, in true Uchiha style, brooded a little.

Three years. Three years he'd spent in the company of Otonin with Tayuya and Kidoumaru ranking highly on the list of those he spent the most time with. And now they were parents.

It was decidedly…unsettling. He could remember Tayuya's crude antics and her aversion to anything gentle as well as he could remember Kidoumaru's quick, brilliant mind and his habit of leaving spiders in the corners of his room to spin their messy webs instead of being hygienic and getting rid of them. They'd been young when he'd known them, young in civilian years at least, and if Sakura and Tenten's estimates of the child's age were correct, they'd been young even by civilian standards when they had him.

If he were being honest, Tayuya and Kidoumaru's obvious proof of reproduction highlighted his own procrastination in that area.

Sasuke did not like being rushed. He also didn't like reminders that he, as of yet, hadn't produced any heirs. Restocking the Uchiha clan was his responsibility, but there was also the limiting factor that was the distinct lack of available women to carry those heirs. There was never a suitable time for kunoichi to have children – nine months of losing fitness and putting on weight didn't appeal to those who were serious about their profession and Sasuke wasn't interested in those who weren't. Civilians were out of the question, naturally – diluted blood. And while Sakura would probably offer her womb up willingly, Sasuke found himself reluctant to use her in that fashion.

No, he didn't understand it either. Six years down the line and he_ still _wasn't entirely used to his status as a non-avenger with close friends and people who cared for him. Throwing the knowledge that he was required to reproduce out of obligation to the shadow of his clan being thrown into the mix didn't improve it at all. He wasn't really a kid person – youngsters adored Naruto but were put off by his dark, reserved manner. Uchiha Sasuke was never going to be the poster boy for 'Parents R Us.'

And yet Tayuya was a mother. Stubborn, wilful, violent Tayuya.

Perhaps there was hope for Sasuke yet.

oOo

The day of the first part of the chuunin exam was hot, hot and dry like pretty much any day in Suna. The heat was intense, as if focused by some gigantic lens far above the city.

Tayuya's only concession to the desert was to forgo putting on her dark head wrap and tying her shaggy mane inexpertly up off of the nape of her neck. She'd grown up in this heat and knew that, to avoid the discomfort it brought about, one actually covered skin up instead of baring it.

Jiroubou didn't.

"You look like a lobster," the terror told him from her perch on the window ledge. Her flute lay within easy reach, her hands upon her stomach. She almost looked relaxed.

Jiroubou shifted, wincing. "That's unkind." In response to her scornful look he sighed and gingerly touched his sun-reddened face. "If probably true."

Tayuya snorted. "It's your fault for not remembering sun lotion." She watched as the large fellow moved through her room. He always made things smaller, dwarfed them with his presence. Touchy about her own small stature, she was particularly aware of it around him – this was, perhaps, the reason for her usual idle hostile manner towards him.

Observing him, he really was rather red, skin clashing with his hair, scarlet versus orange. He was also, seemingly, very uncomfortable, sitting down with pained care on the edge of her bed.

The bed, at that point, made a rather pathetic noise.

Tayuya cocked a mocking brow in his direction, deigning to look at him directly this time instead of out of the corner of her dark eye. Her gaze drifted, dispassionately, over reddened skin, the scorched bridge of his nose, the way he shifted uncomfortably when a bead of sweat rolled torturously over the sore expanse of his shoulder.

"I hurt," Jiroubou mumbled, attempting to talk without moving his face. It didn't work. "And I have to go back out there soon enough."

Tayuya, unsurprisingly, was not full to the brim with the milk of human kindness. Instead, she poked his side to see if the sunburn under his tunic was hurting him. When Jiroubou winced, she smirked, but she also swung her legs around so that she could hop off her perch.

"Fatass," she said, barging into his personal space with a blatant disregard for the pain her invasion could cause to sun-scorched skin. "This is why you don't ever take your shirt off in Suna. Ever. C'mere."

She grabbed his chin with one long fingered hand, grasping it firmly and tipping it upward with no small force. She waved away his surprised noise of protest, choosing instead to examine the worst of Jiroubou's sunburn. "You're gonna look fucking awful when this starts to peel," she told him with a certain amount of satisfaction. Jiroubou attempted to regain possession of his face so Tayuya merely tightened her grip. "Well, more awful than usual."

"Thanks for that," Jiroubou mumbled. He sounded sullen and made to move his face away from her inspection.

She secured his chin again. "Shut up." Tayuya managed to sound bitchy and absent at the same time. "You need to put something on that – can't have you looking shitty and embarrassing us." She reversed abruptly and knelt down to search in the small bag she was_ still _living out of three days into the 'visit.' Tayuya didn't do unpacking. "I hate the bloody desert – sand gets fucking everywhere. It's no wonder I upped and left when I did." The rummaging noises stopped. "Here. Shove some of this on your ugly mug."

Jiroubou caught the tube of after sun she tossed in his direction and blinked down at where it lay in his palm. Tayuya could feel his bemused gaze on her as she tucked herself back into her window space and she bristled slightly under its questioning influence.

No, she really didn't like people thinking she ever did anything out of generosity.

"People will get the wrong idea if you go out there looking like a snake shedding its skin." When he continued to look at her, clearly not buying it, she flipped him off. "Just put it on, shithead."

"Language, Tayuya…"

She didn't bother replying to that; he didn't think she would. It was just what was expected of them, a habit that was nearly a decade old. And even if she still feigned an absence of all compassion, Jiroubou and Kidoumaru were privy to the well kept secret that Tayuya had her softer moments. And even in those, she still swore. So, in retrospect, Jiroubou was allowed to be a little surprised when Tayuya, unprompted, gave him sunscreen.

She wasn't usually as obvious as that.

Tayuya continued to pointedly and defiantly _not_ look at Jiroubou and only relaxed an iota when he started to (gingerly) smooth the cooling lotion onto his afflicted areas.

"I wasn't out in the sun for that long," he commented, making his defence.

Tayuya's eye roll was half hidden behind her rag-tag forelock. "Long enough. Here, you burn in the day and freeze in the night." She hunched her shoulders, shrinking slightly while losing none of her presence. "Reminds me why I left this place."

Jiroubou, who came from a place where the weather was temperate and the women were demure, didn't understand. His fingers skimmed gingerly over where his skin had crisped a deep red; his eyes remained on where she sat huddled into herself like a grumpy cat. "I could do without the heat." Then, as an afterthought: "And the sand. But the people seem okay."

Tayuya's glare was acidic. "What the _fuck_? Those bastards decimated us – the Kazekage's brother with the makeup fetish _killed_ Sakon and Ukon. How the hell do they end up as being 'okay'?"

Jiroubou didn't wilt under her tirade (mostly because, for every curse word she uttered, his resolution against her grew that little bit stronger.) "Because that's what we do as ninja – kill who we're told to, ally ourselves with whoever we have to." He softened his voice a little when Tayuya looked as if she were about to explode. "It's been nine years since Sakon and Ukon died and six years since the war. I thought you'd have started to forget a little by now."

Tayuya made an inarticulate noise of disgust. "I thought we'd have been dead by now and look where we are."

"You could sound happier about that. Can you do my shoulders?"

Tayuya pulled a face but, nonetheless, situated herself behind him on the bed while he tugged off his tunic. Her hands seemed diminutive compared to the broad, fleshy expanse of his back. "What's there to be happy about? We're dirt poor and stuck sucking up to Sand and Leaf because they got lucky in some war. Kidoumaru fucking loves it, fawning all over them – yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir."

Jiroubou grunted when her irritation passed over into her touch and violent manipulation of sunburn was not pleasant. "See, you're just jealous that he's good at politics and you're not. _Ow_."

"Oh, grow a pair," Tayuya said with a sneer in her voice. "And there's no way I'm fucking jealous – why the hell would I want to act like the best thing I could do with my time is spending it with my tongue up their asses?"

Jiroubou didn't even want to comment on that charming image.

"These Suna folk piss me off," Tayuya continued. "They can't cook, their leader's a kid who doesn't even look like his balls have dropped and they spend their lives coming to the save the day every time Konoha fucks up. We'd have beaten them if Suna hadn't joined in. The whiny Leaf lot are okay – I'll give them that since we attacked them first – but there's no trusting Sand after what they did to us." Her look was sour even if her touch was marginally gentle as she spread the after sun over his sore skin. "Guess they forgot whose side they were on at the beginning."

"Orochimaru-sama's." Tayuya paused in her ministrations. "They were on his side, not ours."

"_We_ were on his side. Us."

"He was on his own side."

Tayuya's fingernails dug into Jiroubou's skin out of anger and reflex. He didn't flinch, but turned to remove them anyway. "You know it's true," he told her, but made the mistake of letting something that sounded awfully similar to pity seep into his voice.

See, Tayuya hated Orochimaru, loved him too, and had never really been able to differentiate between the two. For her, they were probably the same. Even after his death at the hands of the hands of Konoha shinobi, her twisted loyalty to him remained strong even if her memories of the man were hardly positive.

"Fuck off," Tayuya spat, with real venom this time. Her always precarious temper was teetering dangerously on the edge of catastrophe and, wisely, Jiroubou backed off. He didn't apologise – the Sound Four had never apologised – but he did relent.

He let her cool off for a while, pulling on his tunic gingerly. The after sun was blissfully cool on his back, but he didn't particularly want to risk aggravating his burns further. Aggravating_ Tayuya _further wasn't a wonderful prospect so he waited a while before risking a foray into No Man's Land.

"Here," he said, drop-shotting the tube of after sun into her lap.

"Keep it," came the short reply. Tayuya threw it back to him. "I don't burn." The young woman scowled when Jiroubou cast an appraising eye over her pale skin, obviously sceptical. "I'm not stupid enough to."

"Ah…"

"Tayuya-senseeeeei!"

Tayuya groaned and seriously contemplated jumping out of the window. She didn't have time. Her door slammed open and Seiichi galloped in, followed more decorously by Kaede and Dai.

"We dropped Hisoka off with Naoko-san, just like you told us to, _now_ can we go?"

Tayuya was beginning to suspect that Seiichi had some secret bloodline limit that took away his need for oxygen, especially when he spoke. God only knew how many times she'd wanted to test that theory by tossing him in a lake with training weights tied to his ankles.

Jiroubou – the bastard – looked amused. "Take them," he told her. "I'll fetch my lot and meet you there."

Tayuya's pre-emptive smack of the back of Seiichi's head prevented him from celebrating too loudly. "Don't fucking dawdle," she snapped at her larger comrade before, with a few choice barked commands, she herded her brood out of her room.

She wasn't a morning person.

oOo

Kiba had, once more, landed baby-sitting duty. In Naruto's words, he was too lazy to have a genin team and he wasn't being paid to ogle Sand girls.

In his defence, they did have a propensity for fishnet in vast amounts.

Akamaru sprawled at his feet like a small mountain of pale fur and corded muscle. He wasn't all that bothered by the heat, though the first day had involved a lot of panting and longing looks at shady areas. Kiba nudged him with a toe and Akamaru rolled over in a lazy fashion.

"Too early for you, huh?"

Akamaru twitched an ear by way of response.

Kiba grinned. His dog may not have been the best of conversation partners before noon, but he was fairly useful at night when the temperatures dropped to ridiculously low levels in the desert.

Needless to say, the Inuzuka clan saved a veritable fortune in heating bills when winter rolled around.

A door slammed and Kiba pushed himself away from the wall at the same time as three genin spilled out into the street followed by Tayuya. The kids seemed enthusiastic, swirling around their sensei like the sea around a headland, and their chatter was enough to rouse Akamaru from his soporific state.

"Ready to leave?" Kiba directed his question to the Sound kunoichi.

"Yes!" Instead, it was the tallest boy who answered.

Tayuya scowled and grabbed him by his scruff, giving him a quick shake. "Did your mother never teach you to keep your mouth shut when adults are talking?" The kid squirmed in her group, but quieted down. She dropped him unceremoniously and turned to Kiba. "Yes, but we don't need a bloody escort."

Kiba shrugged. "I didn't want to be stuck with escort duty, but I guess we both just do what the Powers That Be tell us."

Tayuya grumbled something that sounded mutinous under her breath, but fell into step with Kiba when they started off. Akamaru ranged around in front of them, investigating interesting pockets of smells when he found them and leaving his own marks to confuse the rangy Suna mutts that lurked in alleys and corners.

Behind them, the kids chattered. What was the first test was going to be? Were the Konoha genin stupid if they were so old and still not yet Chuunin? Were they going to beat Jiroubou-sensei's team?

"At least they don't seem scared," he commented, looking at Tayuya sideways on.

The redhead snorted. "The only thing they should be scared of is me if they're too pansy-assed to pass this exam."

Kiba's prominent canines were exposed in a grin. "I suppose you were one of those annoying ones who passed on the first time."

"Didn't pass at all." At Kiba's puzzled look, Tayuya rolled her eyes but explained anyway. "Me, Kidoumaru and Jirou – we didn't take any Chuunin exam. We were students of Orochimaru-sama, so no exams were needed."

Kiba had never been one for the unspoken shinobi rules of not discussing rank and the like with foreigners so he had no qualms about quizzing her further. "So where does that put you with ranking?"

He wasn't fazed by her scornful look – in fact, he practically approved of it. He liked girls who were more than a little rough around the edges. "Where do you think it fucking puts me?"

Kiba chuckled and reached out to tug on Akamaru's ear as he went lolloping past. "High up. But Temari still beat you."

Tayuya's eyes flashed with a brief lightning storm. "I was still young then. And she had no business at all being in that fight."

"So you're saying you could beat her now?"

"Tayuya-sensei can beat anyone she wants to!"

"Damn straight, kid."

Kiba watched in amusement as the tall boy who'd spoken out so vociferously puffed up with pleasure at his teacher's words and fell back into line. Granted, he hadn't pegged the scrappy lass as someone who could command a genin team, but they seemed confident enough, even in the face of their older and more experienced competition. He knew that Shikamaru in particular was wary of her, but it was hard to feel intimidated when, in person, she was such a little scrap of a woman. Even dark, unfriendly eyes and the shocking poison-kelp of her hair didn't make her that intimidating, not when Kiba was used to Konoha kunoichi like Anko, or Ino and Sakura when they were incensed over something.

Back home, meek and mild Hinata was the exception, not the rule. His mother and sister were proof enough of that.

"So, seriously," Kiba said with a feral, teasing edge to his grin. "You and Temari – who'd win?"

Her look was an arrogant one. "Me. I don't need to wait for someone else to tire out my opponent before jumping in."

"Fair enough." Kiba shoved his hands in his pockets, tipping his face up towards the sun in obvious enjoyment. It wasn't even half-nine yet; they had plenty of time to amble and to enjoy the sun before it got too hot. "They're talking of setting up some exhibition matches anyway, as entertainment. Perhaps you guys could have a rematch."

It took Kiba a few strides to realise that Tayuya wasn't keeping up. He turned to look back to where she'd stopped, genin forming a duckling line behind her, and watched as a slow, dangerous grin spread like wildfire over her sharp features. "Ohhh," she said, savouring the sound and filling it with an anticipation that was almost lustful. "The sand-bitch is in _trouble_."

Kiba had seen his mother smile like that before and, while it was understood that Temari was an outrageously strong fighter, wondered whether Gaara's older sister didn't have something to worry about if Tayuya could look like that.

Now there was a match he was going to have to see.

"Put your money where your mouth is, girl."

She returned the smirk he'd sent her. "Broke, but I'll kick her pansy ass for fun."

"Heh." Kiba affixed her with a level look – difficult when they were walking and he beat her in height by a foot. "You Soundies aren't all that bad." Funny thing that – dogs didn't hold grudges. They were loyal, yes, but they were forgiving of mistakes as well. Cats on the other hand now, cats were terrible for remembering each and every fault done to them in every single one of their nine lives. Kiba didn't see the point. As Shikamaru would often point out, he didn't have the attention span necessary either. Kiba, in some ways, was very much the perfect shinobi when it came to understanding and facilitating the necessity that was fighting against a faction one day, then siding with them the next.

A prime example being Sand, of course.

No, grudges didn't help with the shifting nature of political shinobi alliances and Kiba's own mentality meant that, despite Tayuya's one-time attempts to kill Shikamaru, he could still admire her grit and wit. She'd been doing the job of a good little soldier, obeying that snake bastard's orders.

Hell, who hadn't wanted to kill Shikamaru every now and then?

Tayuya gave him a funny look, like a dog given peanut butter for the first time who was trying to decide whether it liked the sensation of gummy stuff clogging up its upper palate. Her frown smoothed out in the end, bemusement fading, and she let out a little 'heh' noise herself. "Don't kid yourself. We're fucking rotten, through and through." She looked back to where her little soldiers were romping with Akamaru. "Depends from where you're looking from, I guess."

Kiba followed where she was looking and rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. "He's still a pup at heart." He put two fingers to his lips and let out a piercing whistle that made Kaede slam her hands down over her ears in protest and Akamaru come bounding over. "You're a shitty guard dog," he told the large cream-coloured beast who, quite without penitence, licked his owner's hand and went back to play with the three two-leggers who smelt so interesting.

"Quit mucking around, brats," Tayuya grumbled. "We're getting to where people can see you – shape up and stop making me look like a crap teacher."

"Yes, Tayuya-sensei!" they chorused in perfect unison.

She spoke the truth – their passage through the intricate maze of Suna's streets had brought them onto a throughway that was gradually filling with people – genin, teachers, spectators – who were all heading to the same place. Akamaru, more by habit than anything resembling obeying orders, drifted closer to Kiba's side. This had been useful when he was calf height, but fairly useless now that the dog was larger than a pony.

There was no losing Akamaru anymore. Or accidentally sitting on him.

"Over here." Kiba gestured for his own particular charges to follow him, just as all the other Konoha or Suna shinobi set to escort duty were doing.

"I know where we're going," Tayuya replied waspishly.

"Hmm?"

"I was born here, moron."

"Oh. Yeah. Sakura said something about that." He flashed canine at her over his shoulder. "But you never know, it might have changed. It's been a while."

Since she really couldn't say much to that, Tayuya settled for berating her genin instead. "Enough with the dawdling – if you're gonna piss your pants in fear, do it on your own time, not ours. Move!"

Kiba figured that her words must have been Sound code for 'You'll do fine' because the kids perked up even more (if possible) and eddied around her feet when they finally did pause in front of the building where the first part of the exam was being held. Kiba watched as they peered up at her hopefully. Tayuya pulled a long-suffering face and, absently, smacked the tallest boy when he tugged on the ragged ends of her red hair. "Don't fuck up," she told them by way of encouragement. "I'll have you hanging by your guts from the ceiling if you embarrass me."

They nodded avidly, like this the height of praise from her. Soundies, Kiba fathomed, were _fucking weird _a lot of the time.

The quieter lad saluted, closely followed by the other two. Tayuya glowered down at them and, finally, sent them on their way with brief cuffs to the head.

It was almost a benediction. Just a painful one.

Kiba watched them race off with all the energy ten-year olds could muster and ran a hand through his shaggy hair. "God, they seem young for this."

Tayuya didn't follow their passage into the building. The wind tugged fretfully at loose streamers of her hair, flicking them out to the side and into her face, and she brushed them aside with a growl. "I was about seven when Orochimaru-sama picked me out for personal training. To me, they're old."

Weighing those words left Kiba quiet for a few seconds, but he roused himself from whatever contemplation he'd been immersed in with a business-like shake. The gesture was highly akin to the one Akamaru made use of when sloughing water from his coarse coat.

"C'mon. I hear someone's setting up a betting pool on the genin teams. Prize money's s'posed to be good."

Tayuya arched a brow in his direction. "I already told you I'm broke, dumbass."

Kiba's smile was the most charming one he had to offer. "I know. But I'll split the winnings with you if you tell me which of your teams you're hedging _your_ bets on." She looked sceptical. "Hey, isn't this trip meant to be about cultural exchange and all that jazz? Help a guy out, here."

The same nuisance of a wind that had taken delight in messing up Tayuya's hair spat a mouthful of gritty sand onto her clothes and she wrinkled her nose in distaste, flicking the stuff away. A few grains insinuated themselves under her fingernails and she rubbed them together automatically, feeling the scratch and grate of Suna under her skin.

"Fifty/fifty."

"Hell no. Eighty/twenty."

"You're fucking kidding me. Sixty/forty."

"Seventy/thirty?"

"Sixty/forty." Her tone didn't brook any argument.

Kiba grinned ruefully. "Deal." He spat on the ground to seal it and Tayuya followed suit. "You drive a tough bargain, girl."

"Jirou can't bargain for shit – when we're out on missions, I have to buy the food or we'd starve."

"Gotta love a girl who's a miser."

"Who the fuck are you calling a miser?"

"Arff!"

"Not helping, 'Maru…"

"_What did the mutt say?"_

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

Chapter ran away with me, so you get nearly five and a half thousand words of rambling, but we are actually _at _the Chuunin exams now. It only took me, what, seven chapters? Le sigh.

Jiroubou/Tayuya interaction makes me happy. Hell, any Sound interaction makes me happy. I'm also fond of the Inuzuka boy and his dog (despite the four cats I own, I'm inordinately fond of canines as well.)

In short: I promise we are going somewhere.

**In Next Week's Episode:**

_It was understood that Sand and Leaf ran together, that Leaf didn't like Earth and Rain didn't like Waterfall, that Sound was very much a pariah, but here they were entering back into shinobi circles and didn't that upset the routines and habits that were well established?_


	8. Ashes and Glass

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** Ashes and Glass

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG (Yup, we've gone back to being even _more_ childfriendly – how did that happen?)

**Warnings:**Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…)

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

The jounin waiting area (a loose name since a range of ranks resided there) was full to the brim with team leaders from various Hidden Villages and those with any vested interest in the genin undertaking the exam. It was cramped, hot and noisy – i.e., the jounin norm, regardless of allegiance.

Naruto and Gaara were conspicuously absent, but Temari knew her brother. They'd be walking probably, as they usually did, indulging themselves in the odd brand of friendship that had lasted all this time. They weren't specifically needed for the first part of the Chuunin exams and there weren't any meetings scheduled, so they'd have secreted themselves off to do whatever bijuu-carriers (current and former) did in their free time.

Free time, in itself, was something of a novelty. Temari was usually kept on her toes – diplomat and shinobi both, she had more places to be than she had time to get to them. Sitting on Suna's council took up a significant portion of her time, as did her role as liaison with Konoha. Her unofficial standing as Gaara's personal advisor (along with Kankurou and Baki) was a full-time job.

So this being allowed to lounge around with the other jounin as they waited for the results of the first test to come through was a new experience. And, as Temari was rapidly discovering, a boring one.

She twiddled her toes experimentally and, finding that most unsatisfactory as a distraction, allowed her half-hooded gaze to drift around the room. The Konoha and Suna shinobi were used to each other's presence and mingled readily enough, but the Rain-nin (almost secular to the point of it being creepy) kept to their own corner. The Otonin were absent, but that was to be expected. The Sand ninja had been briefed to be polite and accommodating, but there was still an air of unease between factions despite the best efforts of those higher up. There had been over half a decade of peace and, in that time, shinobi had grown out of the habit of expecting their alliances to shift every month or so. So, despite the metaphorical white banner, tolerance had actually become _worse_in the ninja community. It was understood that Sand and Leaf ran together, that Leaf didn't like Earth and Rain didn't like Waterfall, that Sound was very much a pariah, but here they were entering back into shinobi circles and didn't that upset the routines and habits that were well established?

Temari was remarkably indifferent to Sound. Sure, she'd nearly killed the redhead, but that had been on a job – she didn't harbour the woman any particular malice so long as she wasn't radiating any bloodlust in Temari's direction. If they were here looking for an alliance (and their tentative actions of peace suggested this was the case) then she for one wouldn't be against it. Looking out for Suna's best interests included strengthening their role with as many allies as possible.

She made a note to mention that to Gaara once the hustle and bustle of the Chuunin exams was over.

A streamer of white-blonde hair wafted past Temari's face, a precursor to Ino flumping down into the sagging armchair next to her.

"I," the Konoha kunoichi proclaimed with an air of resigned morbidity, "Have never been this stressed before. Ever." A slim-fingered hand covered her eyes.

Temari, wordlessly, passed her the steaming cup of tea she hadn't yet touched and watched as Ino gulped it down with flagrant disregard for its near boiling state.

"This is just the first stage," she said in as soothing a manner as she was able. There really wasn't much point in expending effort needlessly – Ino and only Ino decided when she was done with being dramatic. Temari just settled herself down for the ride.

"Which means that, even if they get through this one, there are still _more chances to die_!" She took another slurp of her (Temari's) tea and added, "Or have their hair cut off."

Even though Ino's hair now reached her ass, she still seemed to remember (with a certain amount of anguish) the unfortunate circumstances under which she had suffered the after-effects of her long mane being shorn short. Temari liked Ino, she really did, but the girl was a little odd when she held hair loss on a par with, well, _death_.

Then again, if Temari had hair as nice as Ino's…

Rescuing herself from a quick fall into overt femininity, Temari managed to find a sympathetic smile to offer the younger kunoichi. "You put them up for it. I'm sure they're fine."

"But the Chuunin exams are dangerous. I mean, I'm sure Asuma-sensei thought _we _were ready when he put us up for it and only Shika passed! It took me_ three _tries!"

"Ino."

"And things are dangerous out here. It's hot – they could get dehydrated and they're not so good with water justu. Oh God, what if they turn into prunes?"

"Ino."

"What am I going to tell their parents? 'Oh, hey there, Tsubaki-san, I brought your son back to you, but he's a prune now. Sorry about that.'"

"_Ino_."

The slender girl was roused from her melodramatic theorising. "What?"

Temari had to smile. It was that or smack Ino around the head. "Firstly, they're inside for the first part so you don't need to worry about prunification. And you're being dramatic – you survived, so why shouldn't they?"

Ino pursed her lips at the older shinobi. "It's not dramatic to think things through proper—"

"Dramatic."

"Fine, maybe a little." Some of the tension seeped from her finely toned muscles and she settled back into the chair and took a more sedate sip of her tea. "Oh, shit, was this yours?"

Temari waved the cup away when Ino tried to pass it back to her. "Don't worry, I'm not that thirsty. And I prefer coffee."

"Bad for your health that," Ino commented automatically.

"Probably why I like it."

Ino laughed and the bright sound faded away into the thrumming chatter of the rest of the room's occupants. A single nail (purple today, glossed) ran around the edge of the teacup. "Do you even remember being that young?" she asked.

Temari had a choice of several answers, weighed them carefully and picked one. "I'm pretty sure it was shitty," she said gravely. "I much prefer now. Things get better, usually depending on how soon you can get promoted and earn more money. That definitely improves the shittiness."

The blend of honesty and glib humour seemed to work and the pretty kunoichi brightened up. Ino went up and down the emotional scale like a particularly rampant yoyo on a daily basis. It was, at least, entertaining since life around Yamanaka Ino was never dull.

"They'll do fine," she said, sounding more sure of herself. "I trained them pretty well when it came to interrogation. It seemed harsh at the time, but I'm glad that they did." She clicked her tongue against her teeth. "Poor kids who get Ibiki though."

Temari nodded in agreement. "He's probably tougher than most of the Suna ones, I have to say."

It had been a controversial decision to make the exam's first stage an interrogation since the high stress levels produced by the sheer amount of mental pressure put upon the examinees could, potentially, damage them more than anything physical could.

All the more reason to introduce them to it early, Gaara had said flatly and that had been the end of that.

The kids hadn't been told in advance – that would have defeated the purpose – and neither did they know that they weren't to be physically tortured. The fear of it would be sufficient when combined with some of the gruelling genjutsu the proctors had under their belts. The choice to make the test a full twelve hours long only intensified the strain.

Weak links would be eliminated early and wasn't that the point of the first exam? To sort the grain from the chaff?

Temari chanced a glance at the clock on the wall. "Three hours gone – only another nine to go."

Her dry comment didn't evoke the expected chuckle from Ino because the blonde was looking at the clock and, simultaneously, trying to jump to her feet without sending hot tea everywhere.

"_Shit_," Ino swore, passing the tea back to a bemused-looking Temari. "I'm supposed to be meeting Sakura for lunch."

Temari's eyebrow shot up an inch or so. "Your genin are undergoing mental torture and you're having lunch?"

Ino shrugged, only half-listening as she grabbed her bag. "We all deal with stress differently, Temari – I like some sake on the side."

"You couldn't have remembered this _before_ you had the meltdown in front of me?"

Ino's smile was nice as pie. "But you're just so _good_ at the comforting thing." She blew Temari a kiss. "I'll see you later."

Watching the males in the room watch Ino leave made Temari wonder whether being Yamanaka Ino was any more fun than being Temari. Then she remembered just how much hassle her own comparatively short hair was to keep under control and decided that maintenance wasn't really her forte.

She was setting the mostly drained cup of tea down since her desire for it had dimmed considerably. Ino's lipstick was far prettier on her than it was on the rim of the china vessel, a sort of vampy red that only the hot girls could pull off without looking trampy.

All the makeup skills in the family had gone to Kankurou. Temari vaguely knew how to use eyeliner. Possibly.

Eyeliner-less eyes of a pale jade slid abruptly over to her right. Caught in her peripheral vision was a lanky figure that slouched and slid and sidled his way through the throng of people filling the room. He picked an exit, seemingly at random, one hand already reaching into the deep pocket of his trousers.

Temari had no one to excuse herself from so her passage was swifter and unnoticed.

A sixth sense told her to head up and bright sunlight assailed her eyes when she moved from inside to out. It was a cloudless day – hot and dry – and everything had a slightly over-exposed cast to it. If she looked towards the desert, only an ochre blur would greet her as a result of the heat haze that skewed the horizon. Below her, Suna stretched out in all its ragtag glory, a maze of earthy buildings that sprawled out until its messiness was abruptly cut off by the village's wall. The air was still with no trace of a wind to dispel the smoke that immediately assailed Temari's sensitive nose.

She wrinkled the appendage, looking over to where Shikamaru hugged the shadows cast by the stairwell. "I should have known you'd be out on a smoke break."

"What kind of a jounin ready room has a no smoking room?"

"The kind where no one suffers the effects of second-hand smoke."

"Ngh."

Temari smoothed the folds of her kimono over her thighs so that she could sit down next to him. Her knees hugged her chest, one arm folded casually over the bridge their tops made. The other hand lay in the distance between the two shinobi.

The rooftop they had appropriated for the moment was one of the taller structures in Suna (whose architects had opted for low and rambling rather than tall and condensed) and offered a decent view of their surroundings. Overhead, a messenger hawk screamed thinly, its cry weakened by endless amounts of air.

They didn't look at each other. Neither of them held much with formality and each found their own places to rest their gaze. Temari examined the unhealthy splash of lichen that grew in all its sickly yellow glory against the dull red of the mud brick. Shikamaru's head was cradled none too gently by the wall they were propped against as his gaze roved aimlessly over the dusky blue expanse of sky above them.

An indeterminate amount of time passed. The soaring hawk spiralled down out of sight. Shikamaru finished one cigarette, crushed the glowing stump beneath his boot. Lit another. Temari ran idle fingers over her knee, tracing the fabric of her kimono, feeling where the weak points were, where a ripped seam had been repaired.

There was no hurry.

"Kankurou's betting," Shikamaru said after a while, yellowed fingers plucking the carefully rolled cylinder from his thin lips.

"I know." Temari rolled her eyes and examined a stray lock of hair. The ends were split despite the small fortune she seemed to spend on conditioner – her one luxury when desert winds and desert sun seemed to conspire against a girl. "I told him he's in trouble if Gaara catches him."

"Naruto would probably join right in."

A small smile bloomed on Temari's face. "You're probably right."

Their conversation died away again briefly, the only sound being that of Shikamaru's breath – quiet drags and quieter exhales of smoke. Then, "Ten on Ino's team passing."

"Done. Raise you twenty on Neji's team fucking up again."

"You think?"

"Hey, you're the genius."

"Heh." His lips curled into a wry smile. "Done." He took another drag of his smoke, choked slightly, then pulled an aggrieved face. "How your sand manages to get into my cigarettes, I'll never know."

"It's not my sand," Temari replied absently. She could feel the staining smell of his smoke getting into her hair and couldn't quite muster the interest to care all that much about it. As far as self-destructive habits went, choosing to lead a shinobi life (life expectancy of twenty-six and all) kind of made smoking and cancer risks pale into comparison.

"You live in Suna," Shikamaru pointed out with his usual pedantic phrasing. "It's your sand."

"Maybe." Temari tipped her head to one side, eyes a little bit unfocused, lips a little bit thinned. "They say Suna's founder had a bet with the desert God that he couldn't build a house in a year out here. He thought he'd win easily, but every time he slept, the God would just pull the sand out from underneath the foundations and he'd have to start over."

Shikamaru's eyes had none of the flatness that Sai's did, but they still weren't the easiest to read. "How'd he do it?"

"Gave up on bricks and wood altogether and made a blood bond with the sand. Shaped it like a sand castle." Temari shot him a sly look, tongue wetting her amused smile when he looked surprised. "What, you thought Gaara was the only one? His skills had nothing to do with Shukaku, whatever he believed." Her smile wavered then sharpened. "Call it a family heritage."

"Huh." Shikamaru's expression waxed thoughtful and he let his head fall back on its axis until it required the wall's support once more. "Interesting if it's true."

He was so damn apathetic most of the time. Temari's breath rushed out through her nostrils in an aggravated parody of a sigh and her fingers drew a brief, staccato drum roll from the tight fabric stretched across her knees. She'd have said that he did it on purpose were acting not something that required far more energy than he was willing to expend.

Lazy bastard.

"What do you think of the representatives from Oto?"

Temari wasn't unduly surprised by the non sequitur. Shikamaru, a rampant intellectual who never had any real vested interest in maintaining one particular thread of a conversation, was infamous for them. One grew accustomed to them the more time they spent with the most intelligent Leaf shinobi for years.

"A fair showing, I think. The one who does most of the talking, Kidoumaru, he's alright. Certainly interesting to talk to." The spider-nin had demonstrated a surprising knowledge of wind-jutsu and Temari had been disappointed when protocol dictated that she shouldn't spend too much time with one particular delegate and she'd had to, regretfully, move on. "The kids are like most genin, even if they're young for the Chuunin exams." Temari made a neutral so-so gesture with her hand. "Some of the ones who've come are resentful and I suppose they have reason to be, but most of them seem willing enough to be polite when we're around. They're not mixing much, but that's probably because of hostility from _our_ guys, not theirs."

"You noticed?" Shikamaru asked dryly.

Temari winced. "It was difficult not to. I'm glad I got into politics when I did – it's all well and good thinking purely like a shinobi when we're at war, but it's better to see the bigger picture as it stands." She looked at him solidly, no remorse apparent. "I'm advising Gaara to extend an offer of an alliance to them. They'll be valuable and that's one more nation who'll be _slightly _less willing to attack us. I don't like the unrest coming down from Earth and Waterfall. It doesn't bode well."

She didn't need to explain further – they both knew that a peace in the shinobi nations as long running as the one they were living in was an anomaly, not the rule.

He met her gaze steadily for a while and then, slowly and languorously, smirked. "That's what I was planning on telling Naruto."

She allowed her own smirk to surface (because turnaround was fair play in any game.) "Even though one of their elite tried to kill you?"

Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "Nine years ago."

"It was your life, wasn't it?"

"…put it this way: if things hadn't gone wrong for you when you first came to Leaf, would you have had any qualms about killing me?"

"…"

Shikamaru held his hand up to shield his eyes against the sun and narrowly avoided dripping ash all over his flak jacket. "I'm not preaching forgiveness. I'm just saying that Sand invaded Leaf all those years with Sound as their allies and look where we stand now. Tayuya was following orders. It's way too troublesome to still be all up in arms about something from when we were kids."

"Touché," Temari murmured. He was right as, annoyingly, he usually was.

"Besides." Shikamaru sounded less serious now, the drawling quality his voice usually held edging its way back into play. "Kiba thinks she's okay."

"Really?"

"He's been assigned as her escort now that we have the rota sorted out. I saw him earlier taking her and her genin team to the exam room and they seemed to be having quite the conversation." Kiba had always been a chatty lad, quick to decide whether he liked someone or not. "And he took her to Kankurou, but she went all funny when she realised who he was and scarpered." He smiled lop-sidedly. "Possibly because of those team-mates she lost because of him."

"Mmm." Temari accompanied the indeterminate noise with a shrug of her wiry shoulders. "You're not going to go and preach forgiveness to her then?"

"Do you think she'll set zombies on me?"

"Possibly."

"Then I'll ask Kiba to suggest it instead. People smack him sometimes, but they don't usually try and kill him."

"Heh." Temari's wide mouth curved up into a perfect bow. "He doesn't irritate people as much as you do."

"I'm harmless," Shikamaru said blandly, eyes soaring back up the heavens in a display of innocence.

"Sure you are, lad." Temari propped her weight back on her arms, straightening out her legs as she tilted her head up towards the sun. The warmth on her face, instead of lulling her, filled her with a restless sort of energy that marched through her body and played a rippling, military drumbeat with her internal rhythm. Today was not a day for sitting down.

Shikamaru watched her levelly for a few moments before, quite solemnly, plucking the half-smoked cigarette from between his lips and offering it to her. "Here," he said. "You look like you need it."

Temari narrowed her eyes at him, but his expression gave no hint as to whether he wanted her to take the thing or not. Finally, out of a stubbornness only Gaara could claim to beat, she took the cigarette and inhaled.

It was like breathing fire.

Her tongue tasted bitter, but she didn't choke or cough or make a face. Instead she probed experimentally at the insides of her cheeks, found the smoky pockets and mused over them. The smoke she'd exhaled whirled briefly around her features in blue-grey streamers then dissipated. "They're relaxing?"

"Supposedly."

She arched an eyebrow at him. "And that's why you smoke them?"

His smile held a tracery of sadness, more mocking than anything else. "Not really."

Temari didn't pursue the subject further.

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

This was originally one huge chapter. Then I decided it was getting ridiculous and split it in half. This action had somewhat altruistic reasoning behind it for me because that means twice the number of chapters I have written in advance – I've just posted Chapter Four at the time that these two chapters have been completed. I'm dreading the time at which this story stops flowing so easily, so I'm writing as fast as possible before school catches up with me, or my personal life and I'm getting about two chapters done a week.

Aren't I nice to you all?

Vague ShikaTem in this chapter, if you squint hard. Keep that in mind, chickadees.

Sorry for the chapter being a day late – I'm off school for two weeks and, apparently, the only way I can keep track of the days is by knowing which lessons I've had that day. Whoops.

Also, I am having a pimp war with **sycogerl64**. So far, she's threatened to kill her readers if they don't read **Secondhand Faith**. I will go one step further and promise to play really, _really _bad rap music while I kill you if you don't read her **Nightingale**. It's Neji-centric and wonderful and she talks about origami paper cranes. Seriously, go read it. Now!

Also: so much hate for ff dot net sometimes, what with me suddenly discovering that all my perfectly formatted files get messed with, particularly when spaces are deleted around italicised words. Rawr.

**In Next Week's Episode:**

"_We're ninja – we _enjoy_ sneaking about in the dark. Let us have our fun."_


	9. Playing with Fire

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** Playing With Fire

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

"I'll give you good odds."

"No."

"Reeeally good odds."

"Still no, Kankurou."

The puppeteer rolled his eyes, dramatic in their setting of Kabuki facepaint and that ridiculous hood. "People are right about you."

Tenten shot him a look. "Right about what?"

His grin was feline and, eerily, a lot like Temari's version of the same expression. "That you're the boring one."

Tenten, naturally, was insulted. "_What?"_

Kankurou looked suitably blasé, buffing his nails casually against his chest. "Oh, you know. You're sensible. The reliable one. Very dependable. Just not someone who does anything interesting."

"Just because I won't lay bets on which kids are gonna fail a very important exam, doesn't mean I'm _boring_." Tenten looked pissed off, hands firmly ensconced on her skinny hips. "Sakura's way more boring than I am."

Kankurou shook his head, that amused little grin still playing around his lips_ just _to annoy her. "Nah – Sakura's bossy and hot, like the sexy teacher you crush on because you want her to 'discipline' you." He leered comically.

Tenten stared at him for a while before wincing. "Guys, they're all messed up in the head." She muttered something about teachers not being _that _sexy, then paused mid-mumble with a decidedly peeved look on her face.

Kankurou sidled up to her side. "Just remember that _you're _a teacher?" he enquired slyly.

He got an automatic 'Shut up' and was suitably satisfied. Kankurou was very much an adrenalin junkie and aggravating a woman whose hobby revolved around sharp, pointy projectiles was pretty high in the danger thrills.

"I teach ten year olds," she grumbled, hand pushing her messy bangs out of her face. "I doubt they think of me in that manner."

"Because you're boring?" Kankurou offered helpfully, then ducked when she slung her (empty) Styrofoam cup at him.

"You wear more makeup than I do."

"…how is that related to you being boring?"

"It doesn't, but you should feel ashamed anyway."

"Ah." He watched the young woman as she ran her hands up and down her bare arms rapidly and shivered. "You should have worn more clothes."

"Yeah, yeah." Tenten's lips twisted about themselves. "I know what this place is like at night, but every time I come here, the heat in the day convinces me that it being _this_ cold is impossible." She peered at their shadowy surroundings – the sun had long since set and narrow windows didn't give off much light. "Ever considered installing streetlamps?"

"We're ninja – we _enjoy _sneaking about in the dark. Let us have our fun."

Tenten's sigh was theatrical. "Do you ever take anything seriously?"

Kankurou looked thoughtful and made an effort to make it seem considering. "Food, possibly," he said after a while.

When she snickered, he looked at her suspiciously. The smug little look she was trying to hide made him all the more curious and he poked her in the side. "What?"

She looked pointedly in the general direction of his belly, then back up to his face. She smirked, again. "I can see."

Kankurou, shocked, jerked his eyes down towards his own midriff looking scandalised. "Hell, no." Back to her. "You're screwing with me." He stood up taller, self-conscious now and glared at her. "I'm the perfect figure of a shinobi."

"Mmhmm," Tenten agreed blithely and far too easily. "Sure. Whatever you say, Kankurou."

Holding his hand to his stomach, Kankurou shot the kunoichi a filthy look. He was sensitive about his weight – so what? He was big-boned, just like Temari, but he couldn't dress in nothing but fishnet and make it look good now, could he? He wasn't, say, Shikamaru. "You're a bitch, you know that right?"

Brown hair bobbed pleasantly as the woman laughed. "And I thought I was boring."

Kankurou, still grumbling (and sucking in his gut), shouldered her gruffly. Because she was a lot tinier than he was _and_her balance was impeded by her laughter, she stumbled and would have fallen over if someone hadn't been there to catch her.

"Mmmfarghji," she said.

Neji looked down at her coolly, seemingly unperturbed by her face being buried in his chest. "Translation, please."

Tenten extracted herself, fussily checking that her hair was still up in its buns. "Thank you, Neji."

"You're welcome." Unflappable, the Hyuuga was.

Kankurou doffed an imaginary hat to Neji. "If it isn't Hyuuga-hime, herself."

Neji, to the untrained eye, didn't react, but Kankurou knew what to look for. The minute flare of his nostrils, the slight tightening of his aristocratic lips, the look in those pale eyes that turned all the more supercilious. Yup, he could still needle Neji.

"Kankurou," was all that the Sand-nin got.

Tenten (fascinating though the byplay was between her teammate and her friend) was more interested in the cluster of quiet, tired looking children behind Neji. The girl's and one of the boy's eyes were red-rimmed and moist; all three of them looked as if they'd been shattered and then pieced back together again. Messily. "How'd you guys do?" she asked, kindly.

The girl offered the older woman a wan smile that quavered at the edges. A stiff breeze would knock it off her face, like the last leaf on a tree in autumn. "We passed, Tenten-san. All of us."

"But it was hard," the boy who hadn't cried, but was stained with sweat, said. "I wouldn't want to do it again." His teammates nodded along fervently.

Tenten looked sympathetic and Kankurou was interested to watch the play of emotions across her face – a little bit of sorrow, a hell of a lot of resignation, more than a little pride – and reasoned that she must have taught the brats at the Academy. Then she turned her head so that all he really saw of her face was her eye patch and some wisps of brown hair. Plus some nose. "Hopefully you won't have to," she said reassuringly.

Kankurou smirked suddenly and, when Neji tilted his head in question, shook his own. "Nothing. Temari's just gonna lose some money."

"She bet _against _Neji's team?" Tenten's expression was slightly cross. "Tch."

Despite the rumours, Kankurou knew that his little friend wasn't attached romantically to the stoic Hyuuga, but he could see how the notion was so popular and plausible, what with her jumping to his defence at most opportunities.

She was cute and loyal like that.

"You of all people should know that I have no sway over what by darling big sister does." He held up his large hands in supplication when she looked disapproving. "Shikamaru bet too."

He didn't really feel guilty for dropping the lazy shinobi in it – he needed some excitement in his life anyway.

"Why am I not surprised?" Tenten asked rhetorically.

Neji's elegant eyebrow was still suspended somewhere between his hairline and his eyes. "Your sister wagered that my team would fail?"

"Yup."

"Hnn." He sounded more icy than usual – perhaps that stick up his ass wasn't pressing his prostate quite right. But that was Temari's problem – Kankurou would just have to be there to witness it.

And, possibly, to film it.

"Do you know who else passed?" Tenten was enquiring of Neji when Kankurou returned to paying attention to his surroundings. The taller jounin still showed no real signs of outward irritation, but it could be theorised that he would rather talk to Tenten than to the errant brother of the Kazekage.

"Ino's," he said, with his usual stingy way with words. "Yuugao's youngest one cracked, so they all failed. Only one of the Sand teams passed." Kankurou was sure he didn't imagine the smug cast Neji's expression produced for all of a second. "Two from Grass and one from Rain and Sound each."

"Seven then – not a bad number." Tenten smiled, sudden and brilliant even in the dark. "It should be quite the show."

"All the more reason to lay a healthy wager on the outcome," Kankurou chimed in. He looked at her beseechingly while she rolled her single eye and flapped a dismissive hand at him. They were used to this dance – the teasing and the bantering – so it was surprising when another person entered into the fray.

"One hundred on more Konoha genin being promoted than Suna," Neji said with a voice as flat and as even as his eyes.

Kankurou admitted to being surprised for a few moments (beside him, Tenten's jaw flapped most inelegantly before she caught herself and closed it, looking abashed) but his devilish nature won out soon enough. "So Hyuuga-hime _does _know how to have fun," he purred (rumbled, really – he was too large to purr despite the deceptive kitty ear things.) "But, personally, I think we could make it even more interesting."

"Oh?" The Hyuuga managed to fit an entire glacier into a single syllable and the devil on Kankurou's shoulder wanted to laugh hysterically. The angel supposed to be on his other shoulder was on vacation.

With all the innocence of a virginal lamb, Kankurou slung an arm out and neatly hooked an arm around Tenten's waist. She squawked – mostly because he'd come at her from her blind side and, yeah, he was a _little _guilty about that – but was reeled in so that she ended up pressed against the puppeteer's side. Kankurou's arm wound around her in perfectly executed possessiveness. She eyed him with a suspicion that rapidly dissolved into outrage when, quite glibly, he stated "Winner gets a date with her."

"Kankurou, what the-"

"Deal." Kankurou had been treated to the pretty little sight that had been his Hyuuga-hime looking genuinely surprised before a surprising anger had welled up into existence, cold and icy. Catching himself, Neji smoothed his face out into the indifferent mask he usually wore.

His unexpected agreement was enough to shock Tenten out of whatever little hissy fit she'd been working herself up to and she could only blink at Neji in a blend of shock and horror.

Kankurou thought she looked like a bush baby. A cute one, but he probably wouldn't share that particular image with her…

Watching Tenten trying to deal with this rapid turn of events (and, conveniently, forgetting the teensy little detail that she was mad at Kankurou) and Neji retaining his impassive expression even when irritation and improbable stubbornness lingered in the curve of his lips and the depth of his eyes reminded Kankurou of just how much of an evil (but devilishly handsome) genius he was.

"Does this mean that Kankurou-san is Neji-sensei's Ultimate Rival now?"

Leave it to kids to spoil a wonderful moment.

Neji glared at the genin in question. "What have I told you about talking to Lee?"

"That we shouldn't because he puts ridiculous notions in our heads?"

"Indeed."

oOo

"Ow. _Ow_. Okay, seriously, get the fuck off of—_shit_. Maggots, I'm gonna skin you if you don't get off. No, really. Don't make me count to three, you brats. _Fine_. One…_two_…"

Laughing and exuberant, the three genin disentangled themselves from their teacher. The woman in question looked ruffled and more than a little irate as she brushed herself down with the air of a misanthropist. "You," she said menacingly to the grinning children, "Are in so much shit."

Kidoumaru was lounging in a chair and he had a lot of limbs to lounge with. He smiled. "Give them a break, Tayu – they passed."

Cue wordless squeak of happiness from Kaede.

Tayuya continued to scowl. "Of _course_t hey passed, which is why they shouldn't be making such a big fucking deal about it." She snorted air out through her nose like a particularly irate bull. "Geez."

Since the redhead didn't seem inclined towards celebration, Kidoumaru chuckled and gestured to the genin team. "It's late – go and sleep. Leave Tayuya-sensei alone." Then, as an afterthought, "And don't rub it too much in the faces of Jiroubou's team – they won't be thrilled."

Seiichi's face turned disappointed, but Dai nodded (sober and quiet as always) and dragged the taller boy out of the room with a certain alacrity, the blonde girl following. Once they were gone, Tayuya huffed once more, quieter this time and thumped down onto the bed.

"You should be proud," Kidoumaru commented while he watched her settle herself into a casual, boyish cross-legged pose on the counterpane. "They're the only Sound team to have passed."

The look he got from Tayuya quite clearly expressed her view that pride over some brats passing a tiny little exam wasn't something that she felt like doing.

"They did okay," she admitted, grudgingly, removing her headscarf and shaking out her tangled mane of hair. It flopped into her eyes and, after a few futile attempts to blow it out of her face, she grumbled a few choice curses and went off in search of a rarely used hairbrush.

"Do you think we'd have passed the first time if we'd taken these exams?" Kidoumaru asked and instantly received a scathing glance from Tayuya.

"Of course we'd have passed," she said bitingly. "Crap as you are, we'd have still been leagues ahead of any of the opposition." Her laugh was harsh and cynical. "Not everyone had the 'special training' that we had."

Sympathy glimmered in Kidoumaru's dark eyes. "Tayuya…"

She ignored him, raking the brush through her hair and swearing when it caught on a particularly tough tangle. "Do you remember when Kimimaro used to gut us for fun?"

The bones in one of Kidoumaru's shoulders ached with the memory and he replied, drly, "Vaguely."

"These kids," Tayuya said, voice scornful. "They don't know what real hardship's like." She yanked the brush down fiercely, not caring that it left red strands between the teeth. "Their pretty little exams with their pretty little rules and their pretty little alliances – makes me sick." She spat on the floor, ignoring Kidoumaru's frown.

"You seem particularly…viperish today."

Tayuya paused. Frowned. Stared at her pale, wan face in the mirror and watched as a bitter, hateful expression formed upon it. "I saw that puppet guy again."

Realisation was like an unpleasant plunge in a glacial lake. "Oh."

"'Oh,'" she mimicked. "The bastard killed Sakon and Ukon and all you say is 'oh'."

"You_ hated _Sakon and Ukon." Kidoumaru felt the need to remind her of this.

"But they were _ours_!" Kidoumaru was surprised with the heat in her response, even more so when she turned on him, gesturing fiercely with the hairbrush. "They were _ours _and he killed them. He took them away from us and made us weak and left room for the fucking Uchiha to think he belonged in." She must have sensed the surprise and the sudden pity that rose in Kidoumaru at her response because her manner turned all the more angry. "Don't you _dare_ pity me, you bastard spider, don't you fucking dare."

"I wasn't," Kidoumaru said. A lie, but one that served at least to divert her anger away from him because she sat down once more. Her movements remained jerky and angry as she dragged the brush through her hair with short, vicious strokes, but she wasn't on the point of explosion anymore.

"I hate it here."

"I know you do."

"I hate _them_."

"I know."

A long silence, broken only by the rhythmic sound of bristles passing through finally detangled hair.

"…you want an alliance, don't you?"

Kidoumaru met her suspicious, livid gaze levelly and (quite deliberately) shrugged. "What do you want me to say, Tayu?"

It was a risk, saying that. Tayuya had always been unpredictable, prone to rapid mood swings and violent reactions over the smallest provocation. Their standing in the world as a shinobi country had always been a sore point with her and, while the pair could be dubiously described as 'close', their relationship was punctuated with frequent and _loud_ arguments.

Luck was on the spider's side because today, apparently, was not going to host one.

Her breath hissed through her teeth in exasperation. "Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing."

"You swear too much, you know this, right?"

"Who the hell are you - Jiroubou?"

Kidoumaru grinned. "Nah. He's moping around because his team failed."

A snort. "Serves 'em right. They didn't train hard enough."

He had to smile. Tayuya, for all her infuriating complexity, could often condense the world back down into beautiful simplicity when she felt like it. "Perhaps."

Finally satisfied (or at least able to see) Tayuya replaced her brush back in her bag (she still hadn't unpacked, either.) Her hair ran smooth and straight down her back though God only knew how long that would last. Kidoumaru admired it anyway with the abstract appreciation of someone with an inner artist that didn't get let loose very often. Despite their shared parentage of a child and the certain degree of affection he held for her, Tayuya was hardly someone who inspired anything of a romantic nature, so his admiration was purely aesthetic. Not everyone had hair like Tayuya and, most of the time, she hid it under that dratted cap of hers.

And cut it with kunai.

"I'd better go and get Hisoka," Tayuya grumbled, straightening up with a wince. Old injuries gained when they were young and limber seemed to be coming back more and more to plague them the further they got into their twenties. Kabuto had once said that it didn't really matter if they lived to thirty or not – their career as a shinobi depended upon how long it took all of their injuries to catch up with them.

"You do that," Kidoumaru replied amiably and she gave him the finger. He just smiled.

She was halfway through the door when he finally said anything else. "Tayu?"

"What, shithead?" she said in what was, for her, a positively friendly manner when she paused in the doorway, looking at him expectantly.

He allowed a trace of old and ancient grief to show on his face. "I hate them too, sometimes." She retreated behind her forelock again, clearly unsure how to respond to that. "I just know that we have to move on as well."

"…tch. You better have pissed off to bed by the time I'm back."

"Don't I get to kiss my son goodnight?"

Kidoumaru reasoned that the slammed door was a 'yes' in Tayu-ese.

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

Okay, okay – long time, no update. I know. There is a long, complicated story involving certain key files being trapped in certain inaccessible computers and then enough time having passed that things like boyfriends/Christmas/exams got in the way (curse all three equally!) but the point is that I'm updating?

Shortish chapter this time, but I'm particularly fond of how this one turned out, so I don't care. No plot development per se (aside from the little NejiTenKank subplot I dreamed up in the bath last night) but more of an insight into how I view a lot of these characters, a better idea of their 'voice' shall we call it?

Translation note: for those who aren't sure, Kankurou's addition of the suffix –hime to Neji's name translates as, quite literally, 'Princess Hyuuga.' Obviously, Kankurou is taking the piss, but this amuses me to no end so Neji has to suffer it.** Evil**

Want to know something crazy? This story's eighty pages long in word, minus all the author's comments and all that. I have _never_ stuck with a project for this long. Wow. Even if you're not amazed, I am.

**In Next Week's Episode:**

_There was no way in hell anyone would have been able to get her onto something that was, in her eyes, no better than a flying chicken with a bitch of a temper._


	10. Luncheon

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** Luncheon

**Alternative Chapter Title:** Food Provides a Viable Excuse to Fraternise with the Enemy…

**Alternative Alternative Chapter Title:** Three Lunches and an Unconfirmed Sexual Encounter

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her. Oh, and too many chapter titles because the author is indecisive.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

It was a well-known fact that Tayuya was not by any standards a large person.

It was _not _a well-known fact that the same ferocious kunoichi had a deep and irrational fear of heights.

Perhaps the first was connected to the second; perhaps any large height seemed that much higher in comparison to her own diminutive frame. Perhaps they were completely unrelated, but the fact remained that heights made Tayuya's skin crawl, made her gut cramp and made her heart beat that much faster against the cage her ribs made around it.

So watching her genin team soar up into the sky on the back of the_ biggest fucking _hawk she'd ever seen wasn't going to invoke happiness and joy in her tiny little heart. Until recently, she hadn't even been aware that nin-hawks existed, nor that their origins lay in Suna.

'_Probably bred up from flea-ridden vultures…_' she mused to herself, willing the goose bumps on her arms to go down. The last thing she needed was for Kidoumaru to see and to start taking the piss.

Around her, six other birds were lifting off and speeding out into the desert, each with a genin team ensconced on their person. Tayuya didn't envy them their passage; didn't envy their trial either. She hated deserts with a passion (shifting sand, snakes and ridiculously high dunes) so being dropped off in the middle of one, without water, and being told to find to find her way back to a village three days away from her current position since only the first four teams back would pass wasn't exactly her favourite pastime.

There was no way in hell anyone would have been able to get her onto something that was, in her eyes, no better than a flying chicken with a bitch of a temper.

A low whistle reverberated around the shell of her ear and not a particularly tuneful one either. A musician born and bred, she turned around to narrow her eyes at her tone-deaf perpetrator.

Kiba didn't notice. His attention was firmly affixed on the admittedly impressive sight of seven large hawks arrowing off into the desert with the noontide sun as a backdrop. "There's something you don't see everyday…"

Her eyes went from narrowed to rolled. "Who'd want to?"

The Inuzuka grinned, widely. "Well, you're just a bundle of cynicism today."

Tayuya figured that the question was rhetoric and didn't bother answering.

She examined her fingernails, wrinkling her nose over the state of them. Ochre sand had lodged itself under them and she scraped at the gunk with a thumbnail. Fruitlessly. The stuff got everywhere, rimming eyes and making one shed a shower of sand from their hair whenever they moved. Tayuya, who hated being dirty at the best of times, was not. Fond. Of Sand.

Her eyes flickered over to where Kiba was standing – attentive, patient, dutiful – and felt a scowl wriggling behind her face, hounding to come out. The kid himself wasn't all bad – better than the spineless Suna traitors or the superior, often hostile shinobi who made up the rest of the party from his village, but she was coming to resent the constant surveillance that had been forced upon them.

The brunet met her gaze and grinned – harmless and feral at the same time. "You hungry?" Her expression must have conveyed some sort of 'whu?' sentiment and his smile deepened. "It's gone noon and you don't seem like a breakfast sort of person."

She wasn't.

"I know a good noodle bar around here."

"Just because you're my babysitter, doesn't mean you have to fucking feed me."

"Hostile little thing, aren't you?"

"…"

"Makes me less of a babysitter if you come and have lunch with me, doesn't it? And I thought you'd like that better."

"…"

Kiba appealed to Jiroubou who was nearby, shadowed by a Suna shinobi he didn't realise. "Is she always this difficult to get to do anything?"

Despite her warning glare, Jiroubou sighed. "Tayuya isn't like other women."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, fatass?"

The two men shared a look. Jiroubou looked resigned, but Kiba seemed more amused than anything else. "Point proved," said the Otonin before ambling off – presumably to get his own lunch. Someone of his bulk needed frequent refuelling.

Tayuya was well aware of the fact that Kiba was waiting for an answer and, because hunger (this time) overruled a contrary nature, looked most put out. "Fine," she replied ungraciously. "But I better have a tab I can put this on."

"I'm sure Suna will pay for everything."

Tayuya wasn't sure that she approved of how pleased he looked…

oOo

"You know, you don't favour that shoulder at all."

Neji didn't need to look in the Otonin's direction to know that it was Kidoumaru who stood behind him, all three sets of arms crossed languidly. The Hyuuga finished adjusting his sleeves before answering.

"Konoha medics are skilled at what they do."

Kidoumaru laughed and, surprisingly, sounded honest about it. "Good." Neji felt the other man's eyes linger on him for a little while longer. "How do you think your team will do in the desert?"

A tiny sniff. "They are proficient in wilderness survival. They will cope."

For all his apparent indifference, Neji found himself somewhat fascinated by the dark-skinned shinobi from Sound, the smooth-tongued diplomat who had left him so close to death all those years ago. Knowing that Kidoumaru was the chief diplomat among the Otonin had been an intriguing factoid he'd picked up and he'd mulled it over at various, quiet moments.

Hyuuga Neji was, by popular consensus, a beautiful man. And Kidoumaru was the cause of the only truly marring mark on that beautiful body.

The thought didn't so much incite anger in Neji as birth a sort of respect. Intrigue. Curiosity, with no hate to it.

But, Neji being Neji, that didn't mean he had to be friendly.

Kidoumaru had the kind of smile that, viewed perhaps at night or half-veiled in shadow, could have been counted as eerie. Neji remained unshaken, but did finally turn to look at the other shinobi now that his uniform was back to its usual immaculate state.

"We, perhaps, got off on the wrong foot," Kidoumaru said blithely and held out one of his hands. "Kidoumaru of Oto – pleased to make your acquaintance." A trace of a smirk. "Again."

Neji eyed the outstretched hand for a moment, pondered the exact meaning behind such a gesture, then smiled (slightly, icily) and took it in his own. "Hyuuga Neji," he murmured, shaking Kidoumaru's hand civilly, "Of Konoha."

"Of Konoha renown, you mean," Kidoumaru said. "Everyone's heard of the Hyuuga clan, but your name seems to be on everybody's lips."

Neji shifted and moved the sun out of his direct line of sight. Three-sixty vision was great and all, but a direct dose of sunlight to his actual pupils was hardly high on his list of favourite things. Kidoumaru watched him with slanted, languid eyes. "You're not unknown yourself – I hear you're quite the diplomat."

"Yes, keeping Tayuya from offending an entire collection of political personnel on a daily basis could be classed as diplomatic work," Kidoumaru joked, lazy good humour filtering through both his words and tone.

Neji pinned the name to the girl with the red, red hair, the one Kiba seemed to have taken such a liking to. He wasn't surprised – the Inuzuka women were infamous for their bold, vicious natures and he had, on many occasions, heard Kiba extolling the virtues of redheads when Konoha's younger jounin spent time together. (He didn't, by any real choice, spend time with Kiba, but the younger lad's friendship with Tenten made it unavoidable.)

The dark-haired youth smirked and would have been willing to leave it that, but the slight upturn of the corner of Kidoumaru's mouth arrested his attention, made him aware that this wasn't the end of it.

"I feel like I owe you lunch."

Neji almost wanted to laugh when the other ninja's meaning became clear – logic as convoluted as the shinobi's own web made sense to the genius of his particular graduating year. "A shoulder wound equates to lunch?"

Kidoumaru answered with a grin. "If it evens things out, you probably owe me dinner for what you did to me."

Neji weighed his options and found little wrong with the offer – he wasn't a social man, not by any means, but this dark-skinned shinobi with the quick, sharp wit and the even swifter mind would probably make for interesting company despite his status as a shinobi of a village that was, until recently, rather hostile.

It was a given that Kidoumaru had some sort of ulterior agenda, but that was alright – so did Neji.

"Temari-san says that the local noodle shop is rather good…"

oOo

"We're having lunch," said Temari.

"If I have to," said Shikamaru.

oOo

Kiba wasn't surprised when, along with her ramen, Tayuya ordered a side of yakitori – she seemed the kind of girl who preferred her food impaled on a possible weapon to not. His own voracious appetite led him to ask for the largest udon bowl they had, with the same for Akamaru who had always demanded nothing less than what his owner ate.

He watched with a male sort of fascination as she pulled the chicken off of the skewer, a sharp edge of incisor showing through. Tayuya ate methodically, but rapidly, and with an edge of vicious hunger to her motions, as if she wasn't entirely convinced that someone wouldn't try and take it from her. Not that he could talk – he'd inhaled about half of his noodles in a few minutes. In an Inuzuka household, fussiness over food was not tolerated because if you didn't eat fast, you didn't eat at all.

Kiba maintained that he was a growing boy, even though he'd just turned twenty-two and was more solidly built than taller guys like Neji or Shino, and needed all the food he could get.

Tayuya caught him looking and he flashed her the innocent grin he'd learned from Naruto and bent back to attack his food some more.

He'd heard of this girl (he still wanted to label her 'girl' despite her being two years his senior) from Shikamaru and Temari. Despite his frequent blessings of noogies upon the Nara kid, he _respected_ Shikamaru's prowess as a ninja (hell, the skinny guy was smarter than he'd ever be, the nerd) and it had been thoroughly disconcerting to know that a girl had come so close to killing him.

On the other hand, knowing that it had been another girl who had _saved_ him was, frankly, hilarious and dragged up whenever Shikamaru needed teasing.

Kiba had always been something of an ass when it came to stereotypes and, ignoring his brief and fragmented memoryof her from over nine years ago now, he'd have always thought that, were a woman to ever beat Shikamaru, she'd be a butch, burly monster of a female. Probably with bigger, burlier biceps than his own.

As this particular Otonin was prone to doing, she didn't fit the stereotype. Tayuya was diminutive, if solidly built, with a surprisingly delicate mouth to counteract the stubborn point of her nose. Her face and frame mixed the startlingly feminine with the obviously strong – her eyes were a prime example of this, being elaborately and thickly fringed, but flat and suspicious, with no real definition between pupil and iris. And she had a rangy and boyish figure, minimal curves shrouded all the more by the uniform that was universal to all of her village's warriors.

There were, however, no burly biceps. And the hair – oh, the hair. Red like blood it was, red like poison kelp, and Kiba had always had something of a weakness for redheads, particularly ones with a sizeable dollop of fire in their mental makeup.

It was a common misconception that Kiba went for shrinking violets, shy and demure girls who could look winsome and who needed a man to keep 'em safe. Perhaps it had been his association with Hinata that had convinced others that this was so, when in fact his tastes lay in the exact opposite direction.

He was an _Inuzuka_ for God's sake – the women were harder, faster and more lethal than the men. A woman who couldn't prove her good blood through shedding it herself, and carelessly so, wasn't a real woman at all.

So, yeah, Tayuya. _Not _what he had expected. And his opinions of her had shifted further when he'd been, however randomly, assigned as her semi-permanent guard, him and Akamaru. He'd watched her with her genin team, he'd watched her with her comrades – hell, he'd even watched her with her son and Kiba was plain old fascinated with this rough woman who still remained so awkwardly kind sometimes. No, not kind. That wasn't the right word. It was more an absence of malice.

She was strange, yes, and more than a little hostile, but not mean, no not that.

He liked the way her eyes turned wicked sometimes, almost as much as the way she retreated behind her nose and her forelock of crimson when she was deciding whether to be pissed off or not. He liked the swift purity of her irritation, the way it was there and then not.

He liked her mouth, foul as it was.

It had been said by many that Kiba was something of a man whore and he didn't contest that too much. He liked women. He liked women liking him. And he was a shinobi for crying out loud – he couldn't promise to be alive tomorrow, let alone commitment. There was no harm in fooling around a little and enjoying his youth.

And he _really _didn't mind being labelled as a stud for that.

If he turned to that tiny, miniscule little part of him responsible for being, well, responsible (it sounded a lot like Sakura sometimes, Tenten too) it lectured him about picking _suitable_ women to work his charms upon. Tayuya of Oto, of a village with whom a precarious peace seemed to be being forged, was not suitable.

But it was also said by many that Kiba didn't listen to his responsible voice very much.

Tayuya caught him look at her again and, this time, her brows immediately snapped together into an ominous v. "What?" she demanded.

"Nothing," Kiba said with a smile. "Nothing."

oOo

"Do you play shogi?"

Neji raised an elegant brow. "If you want a good game, I'd ask Shikamaru."

Kidoumaru looked amused. "You didn't answer the question."

Neji's eyes lingered on the way one of Kidoumaru's hands used his chopsticks while the others lay placidly in his lip. The older shinobi brought a whole new meaning to the idea of multi-tasking – two extra pairs of hands to keep track of must have made manual dexterity a must. "Occasionally. My uncle and I play sometimes."

"Do you win?"

He was definitely a Hyuuga, judging by the arrogant curl of his lip and the automatic tilt of his chin. Looking suitably lofty, Neji smirked. "Yes."

Kidoumaru's expression was a pleased one. "We should play sometime." At Neji's slightly bemused look, he elaborated. "If it's anywhere near as interesting as when we fight, it should be good."

"We only fought the once."

Kidoumaru's grin took a turn for the roguish. "What, it wasn't good for you?"

Neji's smile was answer enough and, for a while, they ate in a silence that was _almost _companionable.

Apparently, being both of the genius ilk was enough to qualify them for, possibly, getting along.

It had to be said that shinobi were strange, strange people, with strange, strange habits. Take the present moment. Two men, two shinobi from different villages (villages that, it had to be said, had spent the better part of three years attempting to annihilate each other) and with strikingly different backgrounds sitting at a table together. One, pale and elegant, from a noble house with blood as blue as a clear winter sky; the other, dark and wiry, from a family who had been little more than tinkers and gypsies, but both of them content to skew the rules a little and eat together. Hostility, for now, was forgotten, as were the tiny details about who tried to kill whom.

Metaphorical bread had been broken, though Neji wasn't all that interested in washing feet as well, just to carry on the metaphor.

"Your people don't seem to like us much."

Neji had to wonder whether Kidoumaru was _deliberately_ reminding him of their different allegiances by making the division between 'his people' and 'their people' painfully clear. He did take a moment to scan for any possible ulterior motives hidden within the spider-nin's words, but Kidoumaru's comment was cleanly guileless.

He took a sip of his tea – an unhurried action that gave him time to formulate a response. Neji very rarely spoke hastily and his conversations were often punctuated by silent periods of deliberation. "A valid point." Some among the Konoha party were riled up about their Hokage's decision to allow the 'Oto-bastards' a chance to attack once more, but Naruto (and Sakura and Sasuke) had stamped on that pretty darn hard. Hostility, therefore, smouldered instead of burned, but provided heat all the same. "Though your people don't seem to like us much either."

Kidoumaru's shoulders rolled languorously. "Oh, us from Oto don't like many people. We're born and bred suspicious."

"That could be said of all shinobi."

The dark-skinned young man raised a rather eloquent eyebrow and held up a single finger. "Your Hokage," he said simply.

A glimmer of a smirk made its way across Neji's aquiline features and its passage heralded an amusement that was both resigned and fond at the same time. "Point."

"Are we keeping score?"

The smirk deepened and actually managed to form lines on Neji's otherwise perfect face – unlike many, his body wasn't unduly marred with the wear of innumerable battles: nicks from kunai, shrapnel marks, the general ravages of time and tear. Neji may as well have been a porcelain doll instead of a shinobi with his soft skin and aristocratic hands. Seeing lines in that perfect skin made him more human somehow. "If we are, I'm winning."

A laugh. "You're not bad, Hyuuga Neji. You're not bad at all."

For once, the Hyuuga's smile had a tracery of genuine warmth to it, though it was still rife with his usual reservation. "We're not_all_ born and bred suspicious."

"Hmm."

He tilted his head towards a corner booth in the restaurant where messy brown hair bent towards an equally tousled mane of scarlet. Further down, a cream tail beat in obvious satisfaction.

Kidoumaru, curious now, twisted in his seat to look where Neji was. When his gaze fell upon where Kiba and Tayuya were seated together, something odd guttered in his dark eyes before it passed and the ninja from Oto looked amused.

"Well, if they aren't the poster children for inter-village relations then I don't know who would be."

"I'll mention it to Naruto next time I see him and he can organise a photoshoot," Neji replied dryly.

Kidoumaru's hand twitched slightly when he laughed and Neji had to lean to the side to avoid a splatter of broth, but he found himself not minding all that much.

Sasuke was often disagreeable, Kakashi was too old (and downright weird) and Shikamaru could be far too sarcastic most of the time. Sometimes, you just needed a _decent _genius to talk to.

Honestly.

oOo

Temari, in one of her nicer moods, had taken Shikamaru back to the rooftop of the main jounin building so that he could smoke while they ate lunch. So long as he was downwind from her and his smoke didn't get in her bento box, she was fine with it.

Pickles that tasted of ash were not a desirable delicacy.

The wind was strong today, coming in from the north-east and it held the slight humidity of a more temperate climate. The rare moisture in the air was unusual and Temari let it filter through her hair, down over the curve of her ear and across the precise jut of her clavicles. Wind, however, meant that the moving air was gritty and always left you feeling dusty, however high up you were.

"If you gripe about sand in your sandwiches, I _will _throw you off this roof."

"You're a charming woman, you know that right?"

Temari sneered delicately in his direction. "For someone who's had so much experience in the setting up of these damn exams, you really aren't very busy. Do you _ever _do any work?"

Shikamaru's shrug was lethargic and made Temari want to succumb to the childish urge to flick him on the forehead. "I'm good at managing my time."

Temari wasn't convinced. "What are you actually supposed to be doing?"

Shikamaru looked suitably evasive. "Nothing much." At Temari's sceptical look, he rolled his eyes and muttered something about her being troublesome. "Scouting," he said, finally.

"Scouting?"

"_Scouting_."

Realisation hit. "Oh. Scouting." She frowned again. "You're still a lazy git – if Naruto wants you to assess the current feelings of Oto and the current feelings _towards_ them, you actually need to be around people."

Shikamaru, looking infuriatingly calm, only shrugged again. "I'm on it."

Temari was never going to get used to the way that Shikamaru very rarely gave out more information than he needed to. Yeah, she was a shinobi and she knew _all _about the need for secrecy, but Shikamaru took it to a whole new level. If asked, he probably wouldn't even tell her what filling was in his sandwiches despite the fact that she could very easily see that it was cheese. Cheap cheese.

He was odd like that – not particularly secretive, but too damn apathetic and lazy to bother explaining himself. It pissed her off sometimes.

…okay, fine, _most _of the time.

But she put up with it. Partly because, somewhere along the line, it had become the norm for him to be partnered with her whenever Suna and Konoha needed to work together. Also because, despite his irritating habits (or lack of habits) his lack of expectations regarding her could almost be called relaxing. He didn't expect conversation, he didn't expect her to prove she was stronger than him, he didn't expect a battle – verbal or physical.

Shikamaru, usually, just was. And, usually, Temari was okay with that.

"…Temari?"

"What?"

"There's sand in my sandwiches."

"Nara, you _better_ know how to fly."

oOo

Kiba had, by now, decided that he needed to watch Tayuya eat noodles more often. It was all about the lips and the mouth and the sucking and—well, yeah. Noodles.

He'd finished before her (and Akamaru had finished before him, but who was counting?) and had ordered another bowl, which had left him ample time to admire her eating style. It also left ample time in which she could catch him admiring her eating style.

"Eyes off my food, mutt," she'd told him, looking a little possessive. "Just 'cause you've already finished yours doesn't mean you can get ideas about stealing mine."

He'd had to grin – for someone who'd been smart enough to outwit Shikamaru, Tayuya was proving to be remarkably blind in some areas. "What, you don't share?"

"Fuck no."

"Awww, c'mon." He made sure to look as puppyishly charming as possible. This meant crinkled eyes and the lop-sided smile that exposed one canine and was _remarkably_ endearing. "Don't you want to feed me?"

Tayuya just looked at him.

He cranked up the charm one more level.

The waitress who'd brought him his second noodle bowl swooned, but Tayuya only seemed to get all the more suspicious. The redhead frowned, eyes narrowing. "Are you flirting with me?" she asked bluntly.

"Yep." Kiba started eating his noodles, eyes twinkling with mirth that faded a little towards the end. "Unless…you and that spider-guy?"

"Hell no." Tayuya scowled at him for a moment, her chopsticks hovering in the air momentarily. She seemed to be wading through some complicated thought process and, used to nervous, hostile strays, Kiba stayed quiet.

No sudden movements to scare her off.

She must have reached some sort of decision because the tension went out of her shoulders and she shrugged, going back to her food. "You've got your own now – touch mine and you lose the hand."

Kiba grinned behind his chopsticks. Point to him – he hadn't been murdered and that was always a good sign when it came to the ladies.

oOo

"Is your guy…_flirting _with Tayuya?"

Neji eyed Kidoumaru carefully. "Is it bad if he is?"

The Otonin didn't seem to notice the wary look he was getting, being more focused with 'spying' on the happy couple (trio, if one included Akamaru, which most Leaf shinobi in Kiba's age-range did.) "No. It just means he has guts." A thoughtful look. "Or is deaf. Is he deaf?"

Neji stifled an amused laugh that threatened to bubble up – he couldn't allow his dignity to be compromised after all. "Ah, no. But he is—" Loud, stubborn, irrational. "—difficult to deter."

A smile lifted the corners of Kidoumaru's mouth. "Good for him."

Neji sent Kidoumaru a considering look for a few long moments and then refolded his hands neatly in his lap, clearing his throat as he did so. "May I ask you a personal question?"

The darker man turned his attention back to Neji, the comment surprising a more serious look out of him, but he nodded assent, clearly interested.

Given the go-ahead, Neji proceeded. "Why is Oto here? At this particular chuunin exam. Why now?"

A veil of guardedness filtered down over Kidoumaru's face. "That's hardly personal – it's more professional."

Neutral-eyed, Neji met and held the spider-nin's gaze. "It's personal to you."

After a few heartbeats, the veil dissipated and the congenial Kidoumaru Neji had been treated to over lunch made a reappearance. "How long can you hold a grudge?"

Neji assumed that was rhetoric.

It was. "Politically, it was the right time. People aren't so hung up on hating us anymore." His smile was bitter, if wry. "Better things to do these days, I suppose."

Kidoumaru, it seemed, could give any self-respecting Hyuuga a run for their money when it came to morbidity concerning the past.

"But you're right – it was personal. It couldn't have been _not _personal, not when I was worrying about not being able to feed my son." Kidoumaru's smile held tangible traces of melancholia. "Fatherhood may have been imposed, but he's still my flesh and blood, and you look out for your own." Dark eyes met Neji's equally pale ones. "You should know what I mean."

And, curiously enough, Neji did and thoughts – snippets of memory and dream – of Hinata and Hanabi, his uncle and his father, the wraith of a woman he once called mother flitted through his mind.

They all had people they wanted to protect.

"I think I might."

oOo

"Don't you ever get bored of them?"

It took Shikamaru a while to pay attention to her and Temari's temper frayed a little bit more at the delay. Finally noting her question and peering quite benignly at his sandwiches, he cocked an eyebrow vaguely in her direction. "Why?"

Why, indeed.

"Because it's all you ever seem to eat." It irked her. "Every time you have to provide lunch for yourself, all you ever prepare is sandwiches. _Cheese_ sandwiches." She made 'cheese' sound like the vilest insult in the common tongue.

Shikamaru didn't seem perturbed by her vehemence. Or her fascination with his food. All he did was shrug, quite languidly and with the air of one who was only answering to humour the questioner. "They're easy to make."

"…you're so damn lazy."

"Possibly."

His amiable agreement felt like sand in the eaves and doorsteps of her clothes, an ever-present irritation, which was small enough that you almost felt guilty for finding it a bother. In turn, that niggle of guilt of Temari's led to further irritation and even if she struggled to wind her way down that spiralling descent into aggravation, she knew what she'd find at the heart of the helix.

Shikamaru.

"Tch." Her gaze arrowed away to the far more fascinating coating of dust on the ground. "I don't know why Tsunade bothers paying you." Her hand acted out an irritated gesture, all on its own. "Go and eat your sandwiches since that's all you're able to make."

He was silent for a while and, when she looked up, Temari was surprised to find that he was observing her with some interest. She stared back, icicle eyes not giving a hint of the sudden awkwardness his scrutiny awoke within her. She'd never really noticed the darkness of his eyes, the way his eyelashes were paler than his hair, the slight tanline that marched across his hairline, never really seen them at all. This almost-revelation (almost because, of course, she'd seen them all before, more times than she could count) unsettled her and the day seemed hotter somehow, brighter and more golden.

Then…

"You could always make lunch for me. It'd give you something to do other than nag me."

The moment spoiled like a plum left out in the heat for too long and Temari's lips took on a sour twist – pissed off as she was with him for the inelegance with which he punctured her little almost-revelation, she was more pissed off with herself for having fallen into it in the first place.

Not for the first time, she wondered why she put up with him. She snorted – a most unladylike sound – and rearranged her long legs in front of her. They were nice legs, she reckoned, though mostly out of necessity since the arduous ninja regime had the added benefit of toning muscle to ridiculous degrees, and the woman in her expected Shikamaru to at least _appreciate_that.

She didn't even get a glance. And, somehow, that was the last straw.

It was hot and there were too many strangers in her hometown and she'd just spent the past _four damn_ _days_ being as diplomatic as possible. Temari was tired of smiling, tired of being tactful, tired of circling issues like a particularly careful (and harmless-looking) vulture.

"So," she said all conversational-like when her temper finally snapped as a result of his obvious inattention, "this thing we do where we get drunk, have sex and then act like we've forgotten we did the nasty?"

Ever the one for understatement, Shikamaru just blinked. Carefully. "Yes?"

"Bored of it." She looked at him with a triumphant air of viciousness.

"Ah."

Temari fumed. Quietly. 'Ah'. That was all she got. "No, not 'ah.'" When provoked, Temari could be quite spontaneous and had a habit of getting right to the point. This was how Shikamaru ended up with a lapful of kunoichi and a hand pressing into his throat with fierce intimacy (or just fierce fierceness – with Temari, it was difficult to tell.) "Do you find me attractive? Yes or no."

"Temari, this really isn't-"

"Yes or no." Temari was irritated now and sick to death of the casual way the Leaf shinobi ambled through life – _her _life in particular – and she wanted answers. Or at least a way out of this rambling circle they'd stumbled into that left her dizzy and flustered and_ aggravated_. She was the sister of the Kazekage for God's sake – this wasn't behaviour befitting her station.

Shikamaru looked thoroughly put-out. Heaving a sigh, the Konoha shinobi eyed her fretfully from behind his nose. "Have you been drinking?"

Temari let out a high noise of frustration, wordless, and glared down at him all the more forcefully. He heaved a sigh and draped a hand over the bold curve of her hip (an action that made her shiver in the midst of her heated anger.)

"You're more trouble than you're worth," Shikamaru told her, his bored tone belying the way his fingers knew how to make her squirm through seemingly innocuous touches. "And you don't know when to let a man finish his lunch." She hit him around the head and, in return, he didn't seem to notice it much. "But you really didn't leave me all that much choice about _finding _you attractive."

His frank tone didn't exactly placate her, but it at least took the edge off of her fury. What had been a pressured hand against the front of his neck turned into drifting fingers and the slight scrape of nails against his skin and she somehow managed to maintain the illusion of looking up at him through her eyelashes when her gaze was actually directed downwards.

"You're such a prick sometimes."

A corner of his mouth quirked marginally. "So I've been told."

The cigarette he'd given her the day before had tasted both familiar and alien at the same time and, while Shikamaru's taste was a diluted form of the cigarette's, it was to him that she would compare the newer experience.

For all his faults, kissing Shikamaru felt like coming home.

And perhaps his faults were the cause of that.

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

This was a hateful, hateful chapter to write. It was going well until about the middle then, wham, writer's block. Because there's a lot of focus on the relationships between characters, I had a lot of puzzling to do since, while I have a clear idea in my head of how they'd act around each other, I needed to be sure that it was feasible outside of the crazy logic within my mind.

I hope it worked.

So, I wrote this, and I almost had a screenplay in my head. I want to film this. xD Not that you can film fanfiction, but hey, if I ever have enough cosplayers around…

Finally, some overt romance for you guys. Again, I hope it came as a surprise (because, when it comes to anything romantic in my stories, I don't like things to be obvious and I like to have events sneak up on you) but I also hope it was feasible. I don't see Shikamaru and Temari ever being a typical, romantic couple – they're both a bit too pragmatic for that. This is my take on them, imperfect as it is.

Also – Kiba/Tayuya is my new wtf-otp. I have _no_ idea where it came from, but boy am I loving it. Not that I'm sure these two will even get together – they keep me guessing.

**In Next Week's Episode:**

'_Ino, for all her skill and aptitude as a kunoichi, would always be a drama queen at heart.'_


	11. As Children Play

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** As Children Play

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

Ino, for all her skill and aptitude as a kunoichi, would always be a drama queen at heart.

She'd been very well behaved in front of her obviously disappointed genin team, comforting them and cajoling them with promises of the next exam before sending them off to bed, but as soon as they'd slumped out of the door, she turned into a wailing wreck.

"I m-m-may as well commit sepukkuuuuuuu!" she sobbed into Sakura's breasts. Her lack of respect for decorum made Sasuke look uncomfortable and irritated, but Naruto watched intently and with the slightest hint of drool around his general mouth area.

Sakura, however, was used to this. "No, Ino," she said patiently, patting the blonde girl's back. "You wouldn't look beautiful in a coffin with a slit stomach and you want to be beautiful for all the people who'd come to mourn your death."

Ino made a noise that was half-way between a sniff and a sob. "How many people would come to my funeral?"

"Everyone."

"And would they cry?"

"Girl, their tears would fill an ocean." Naruto and Sasuke shared a silent look – their girl certainly knew all the right answers when it came to Ino's hysterics. And her ego.

Ino sniffled again and the two young men were hopeful that she had been placated, but drooped when she buried her face back in Sakura's chest.

"I'm an awful teacher!" she proclaimed tearily.

"No, Ino, you're not." Naruto smirked foxily when he observed Sakura sneaking a look at her watch behind Ino's head of white-blonde hair. "All of us failed the first time, aside from Shikamaru, and that doesn't mean our teachers didn't do their best."

"I dunno – Kakashi-sensei didn't try all that hard," Naruto grumbled. Sakura shot him a distinctly unfriendly look for being unhelpful. "What? I was just saying…"

"Do us all a favour and don't 'just say' next time," Sasuke muttered under his breath.

Sakura ignored the ensuing scuffle that broke out and smoothed Ino's pale hair with a sympathetic hand. "There's always next time, Ino."

"…"

"And they've gained experience."

"…"

"Why, the next time, they'll actually have an _advantage _over the others _because_ of their experience. Think of this as a trial and let it be a motivation to train all the harder."

Watery, yet remarkably winsome blue eyes peered up at Sakura. "Really?"

"Really."

At this point, Ino performed one of her rapid emotional 360s, moving from tearful and distressed to smug and dismissive. "This was always going to be a practice round." Her tone was airy as she ran swift fingers through her hair, correcting any imaginary kinks she thought were there. "It was all there in my battle plan."

Sakura was walking the thin line between fond amusement and exasperation concerning her friend's fickleness regarding her moods and – somehow – reined herself in. "I'm sure," was her dry response. "Now why don't you go and tell that to the kids to make them feel better."

Once Ino had been ushered out of the room, all sunshine and razor-sharp brightness once more, Sakura sat down with a sigh.

The scuffle between Naruto and Sasuke had progressed to the stage where the former was sitting on the latter and the blonde cast Sakura a bemused look. "Ino's a little bit nuts sometimes."

"Just a little bit?" Sakura asked with a laugh. Her hands, never enjoying stillness, had already sought out some paperwork (of which there was always an unlimited supply). "You'd be surprised actually. Most of what we get from Ino is what she thinks we expect of her. She told me once that the dramatics are part of her charm – it means that she can surprise people when she decides to get serious, however rare that is."

"She's still vapid," Sasuke grunted as he dug a knee into Naruto's stomach, making the smaller man wince and roll off of him.

"That's just what she wants you to think."

The look on Sasuke's face said he wasn't convinced.

Sakura merely smiled benignly and looked down her nose at the pair of them. "Aren't you two a little old to be grappling on the floor? We're not twelve anymore." Her eyes looked laughingly in Naruto's direction. "At least, some of us aren't."

"Oi!"

Sasuke didn't look abashed (he didn't _do _abashed) but he did get up, smoothing his dark clothes down with a scowl. "Don't you have a chuunin exam to be organising?" The comment had teeth. _Sharp _teeth.

"Nope." Naruto grinned and his mouth seemed to stretch from ear to ear. "_Gaara _has a chuunin exam to be organising. _I_ have a tan that needs to be renewed."

"…you are _such _a moron."

Before another fight could break out, Sakura flicked a pen at the closer of the two. Since this happened to be Sasuke, he dodged it with an air of disdain, allowing it to leave a lovely ink stain on the shoulder of Naruto's Hokage robe. "Where's the last round going to be? It doesn't look as if Suna has anywhere big enough to hold the entire audience and have space for any good fights – will we have to go out into the desert?"

Naruto's grin displayed ominous amounts of fang. "You won't believe this…"

oOo

"This is so. Freaking. Awesome."

"Brat, stop running around and sit still!"

"But Tayuya-sensei, don't you think this is awesome?"

"No, I don't, so _sit the fuck down._"

"Yes'm." Reluctantly, Seiichi's bottom made contact with the bench under the irritated gaze of his teacher.

It was fair to say that Tayuya was not in the best of moods. This was, in no small measure, due to the fact that she was currently suspended a good fifty feet above Suna and not loving it.

Mentally she cursed Gaara's resourcefulness. In the face of an obvious lack of space, the Kazekage had decided to take the creation of a suitable venue for the final round of the Chuunin exams into his own hands. He'd crafted a stadium of his own, moulding it out of his seemingly inexhaustible supply of sand and making it large enough to seat all comers while reserving a sizeable space for the actual fights themselves. Once all had entered the sandy stadium, Gaara had lifted it – passengers and all – into the air.

And if, aside from impressing the foreigners by reminding them that Suna was a force to be reckoned with, any outside interference was prevented, then nobody really minded.

Aside from Tayuya.

The children loved it. Kaede and Seiichi had barely been able to contain their excitement when they'd walked (ran) through the lofty gate that dropped the occasional dollop of sand into your hair and even Dai had examined his surroundings with obvious interest. Tayuya on the other hand felt the hair on the nape of her neck stand to attention at the looming prospect of soon hanging in the air with only the word of a foreigner standing between her and a long fall. She was glad the messy fall of her hair hid her reaction and snapped at Seiichi when he asked whether she'd be alright.

Fucking kids – worse than parents. Not that Tayuya remembered her parents, but from what Jiroubou said (him being the only one out of them to have had a relatively happy home life) they were more trouble than they were worth.

A solid, warm pressure against her side made her look down in time to swear when a cold nose pressed against her palm.

"Fucking dog!" she griped, thumping Akamaru's shoulder in the way that made his tail blur in the air. "Can't you put him on a leash or something?" This snippy question was directed at Kiba who had weaved his way through the crowded ready room.

The Inuzuka only smirked at her. "Aww, c'mon – 'Maru was just saying 'hi.'"

"He can say 'hi' without slobbering on me." She looked down at the large dog whose head nearly reached her shoulder. "Yeah, I'm talking about you, you smelly mutt." Akamaru just thumped his tail against her hip once more and wandered off to play with her genin.

Kiba joined Tayuya where she stood leaning on the rail that looked out over the stadium itself. It was from here that those genin who weren't fighting would watch the battles with their teachers and – hopefully – learn something. In the same way that Akamaru had made his presence known, Kiba casually insinuated himself by Tayuya's side, close enough that his clothes brushed against hers.

She didn't acknowledge it. But neither did she move away.

It had been two week since he'd convinced her to go out for lunch with him and, in those two weeks, she had the sense that Kiba was testing her limits. He'd look at her a little too long, let his eyes linger in a way that made her scowl back at him for making her feel uncomfortable. He'd say outrageous things and she'd roll her eyes, but have to fight the urge to smile and end up letting him know that he'd amused her. And he'd been touching her – nothing serious, nothing untoward – just casual, justifiable touches that may very well have been normal but _weren't._

Tayuya felt like she should mind, but really didn't all that much. But she did mind not minding and hadn't veiled her sharp tongue around her semi-permanent escort at all. He'd been treated to her tongue-lashings and had, frankly, seemed to come back for more.

He was insane, she had decided, absolutely fucking insane.

"Dai's up today, right?"

Tayuya nodded moodily, fingers toying with the flute at her waist as they were prone to do when something bothered her. "Yeah, against one of yours."

"The girl from Neji's team? With the short hair?"

"Yeah."

To prolong the entertainment (and also because of the number of participants) the fights were spread out over three days. As chance would have it, Dai was on the first day, Seiichi on the second against one of the Rain genin and Kaede on the last, matched up with a kid from Suna. Tayuya, being the cocky woman that she was, didn't see a scenario where any one of her team lost being a possibility. Her impatience was more to do with the tedious waiting around and the way these exams were dragging on when all she wanted was to go home.

Kiba didn't seem offended by her short, clipped answers and instead scanned the crowd. On the opposite side to them were the raised boxes were the Kage sat with the many daimyo who had turned out to watch the newest bunch of prospective chuunin battle it out under the unforgiving Suna sun. The splash of yellow was Naruto, made instantly recognisably by the pink-topped figure sitting next to him and the dark, brooding figure in an ANBU mask on the other side. He chanced a wave, but none of them were looking in their direction and Tayuya snorted at his failure.

"Bitch," he told her amiably and nudged her with the solid jut of his hip. In return, she elbowed him, making him grin all the harder before a moving figure in the stadium snagged both his attention and his eyeline.

Tayuya watched as the special jounin from Suna announced the beginning of the final round to the audience with barely-concealed impatience. "Brats, time's up – get your asses down there and don't fuck up."

"Hai, sensei!" three voices said in chorus before their footsteps announced that they and all the other genin were heading down to the main arena for the opening ceremony.

Kiba watched them go – black hair, brown hair, blonde hair – and noted a stiffness born of nerves in the shorter boy's walk. "Is Dai ready for his fight?" he asked, frowning.

Tayuya's answering look was flat and almost insulted. "Why the fuck wouldn't he be?" Her dark eyes narrowed. "I trained him and they're tough little shits, however young."

Kiba held up large hands in supplication. "No insult meant, lady," he teased, lips curling with amusement. "Though the girl _was_trained by Neji and your Kidoumaru had the shit kicked out of him by our Hyuuga." He laughed when she bared her teeth at him. "You're so easy to wind up."

She growled. "And your balls are easy to cut off, but you don't see me doing it, do you?"

"…You sure know how to kill a conversation."

Down below, the four teams of genin were lining up on the sand and the hum of the audience built up into a dull roar of approval. These children were the future, they were the next generation.

And people always loved the chance to watch a spectacle that might turn gory.

oOo

Kiba, Shikamaru reasoned, just couldn't keep his nose out of trouble. Or his dick for that matter. Yet still he watched his friend's unusual form of courtship with an almost sick fascination.

"There have _got _to be other girls Kiba can hit on," Chouji commented, sounding just as fascinated by the whole scenario as the Nara boy was.

"I think he's pretty much used up the supply in Konoha," Shikamaru murmured absently. "He's had to find a new source now."

"But_ her?_"

Okay, Shikamaru would be the first to admit that it was a _trifle_ weird to witness Kiba making a valiant attempt at flirting with the redheaded terror who'd nearly killed him. Morbid, even.

Then the pragmatic part of his mind reminded him that he was the one currently involved in some manner with the sister of the Kazekage,_ another _girl who wouldn't have had any qualms about killing him in their own battle.

Clearly, Shikamaru just attracted the violent sorts.

And to avoid being the pot who'd accuse the kettle of having taken the tanning thing way too far, Shikamaru just shrugged. "It's his risk. If he thinks he can pull this off without her biting his head off then more power to him."

Chouji patted his back affectionately which left him slightly breathless and feeling as if a bear had cuffed him. "You're a good man," the solid shinobi told his smaller, skinnier companion.

"Tch…" Always uncomfortable with praise, Shikamaru settled for looking bored and slumping down further against the wall that served as a suitable prop for the lanky ninja. Down in the arena, the first match was kicking off and Shikamaru recognised the slim, pale-haired girl as one of Neji's students. As he recalled she was a dab hand at ninjutsu and had a few nasty wood attacks up her sleeve.

Shikamaru had very little interest in these supposed shinobi of tomorrow, but he still watched with a clinical eye as the boy with the black hair launched the first attack, a simple volley of kicks and punches from which the girl seemed to melt away with the fluid grace of one trained by a Hyuuga. Cautiously, they tested each other with basic if flawlessly performed taijutsu, each landing a few inconsequential blows before they retreated once more to regroup. Shikamaru frowned though when he saw the girl look down at her forearm, the recipient of one of the boy's knife-edged strikes, shake it, then look puzzled as she resumed her guard.

The fight was a fairly traditional one, starting slow and escalating as each combatant brought out progressively higher-level moves. The girl turned the sand around his feet swampy, then launched a heavy assault at what turned out to be a bunshin. From his perch on the wall of the stadium, stuck there with a chakra-laced hand, the boy performed some neat, one-handed seals and blew a thick fog that enveloped the floor of the stadium, lapping at the tiers of seating like a particularly diaphanous sea.

For a while after that, nothing could be seen. The mist eddied, perhaps showing the path of the two children as they fought through it, but the general surface remained still and lifeless.

This monotony went on for about ten minutes and the crowd began to get restless – they were here to see a fight, not to imagine one hidden behind a screen of fog. The general hum of chatter rippled outwards from the seats and the sense of dissatisfaction was heavy on Shikamaru's tongue.

Then the fog boiled upwards as the boy shot up out of it and the crowd was riveted once more.

The boy was propelled by several thick and very alive-looking vines, ones that were firmly wrapped around his arms and legs and that slammed him into the wall with a painful-sounding crack. The boy cried out in pain and, across the rail from him, Tayuya stiffened, not relaxing even when Kiba put a hand on her shoulder.

The girl emerged from the mist much more sedately, standing on a coiled vine that was growing straight up from beneath the fog. Her outstretched hands seemed to be what controlled the vines and, as she gestured, smaller vines twined out of the fog to wrap around the other genin's wrists and ankles, his throat and waist.

It was a good move. Using the vines to immobilise him meant that the girl didn't have to get close to him and risk a counter-attack and the plants were, in theory, more versatile than rope; tougher as well. The fog had probably been jumped upon as a diversionary tactic when the boy had summoned it while she'd started the plants growing and toyed with her opponent until he'd wandered into their grasp.

But still…

"The boy will win," Shikamaru murmured.

Chouji barely had time to glance at him in puzzlement when, to the crowd's consternation, the girl wavered, teetered and then fell – almost in slow motion – to hit the floor. The mist dissolved as she did so, revealing her limp form at the base of the vine column she'd been standing upon as the last straggles of grey fog disappeared into the air.

At the top of the tangled mass of vines she'd used as a perch, something rippled into view. The boy dropped his camouflage and, with an awkward sort of grace, let himself drop to the ground, landing in a cat-like crouch.

As a whole, everyone looked to where the boy was supposed to be, pinned up against the wall, and was treated to the sight of a mud mannequin slowly crumbling into a fine dust.

"How on earth did he do that?" Chouji asked, voicing the question that seemed to be on everybody's lips.

"The kid was very careful to take his gloves off just before the match started." When his Akimichi friend still looked puzzled, Shikamaru rolled his eyes and carried on. "He was there the whole time, holding onto her ankle, and I suspect his skin produces some sort of sedative secretion. He hit her earlier, on the arm, and she favoured the other one for the rest of the match – it's fast-acting and powerful, I think, if it worked that quickly." He looked over to where the medics were hurrying towards the fallen girl and the proctor was busy declaring the lad the winner, tired and wan as he looked.

The girl stirred as the healers reached her and then, to Shikamaru's great amusement and Neji's great embarrassment (he suspected), let out a healthy sounding snore.

"At least we know she's just sleeping…"

oOo

"That, you little fucker, was sloppy."

Kiba winced on Dai's behalf as Tayuya, who had taken it upon herself to bind the boy's wounds, administered her criticisms. She had high standards and gave the genin no leeway when he didn't live up to them. Praise seemed to be a foreign concept to her and nothing positive passed her lips as she daubed antiseptic on his wounds and slapped a bandage on them, but the Inuzuka also couldn't miss the look of unconditional adoration that lingered in Dai's dark eyes, even as she berated him.

Her students loved her, he realised, loved her and lived on her every foul word.

"Here are your gloves, Dai-kun," a glowing Kaede said as she placed them within easy reach of the ten year old's hands. Seiichi flanked her, obviously twitchy with excitement and – judging by the way his hands were clenched by his side – resisting the urge to clap his teammate on the shoulder.

Dai offered her a wan smile, teeth still slightly filmed with red where one of his opponent's punches had cut his mouth on his own incisors. "Thank you."

Tayuya tapped her knuckles against Dai's skull. "Don't thank her – you should have picked them up yourself."

"Yes, Tayuya-sensei." His tone was meek and conciliatory, but from his angle, Kiba could see what Tayuya couldn't – the smile the boy hid, the one that showed he didn't take his teacher's harshness to heart.

Or rather that he did, realising that the stubborn and wilful woman he and his teammates loved didn't comprehend that affection could be showed through anything other than sharp words and gruff tones.

Tayuya tied the last knot, a little tighter than was necessary, and settled for a final, hard flick on the forehead. "At least you didn't cock up too badly."

"I'd say." When Kiba stood behind Tayuya, it really highlighted how tiny she was despite the rigorous force of her personality. "You did good, kid."

"Thank you, Kiba-san." Dai inclined his head in the best attempt at a bow he could make while sitting down.

"And you," Kiba said, slinging an arm around Tayuya's slim shoulders. "You did good too."

The redhead stiffened, obviously not used to such familiar treatment, and for a moment Kiba thought she'd stab him. Then she snorted, relaxing the tense cast of her shoulders. "Damn right I did."

Her genin team shared conspiratorial smiles, but didn't say anything.

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

A transition chapter this week, so I'm relatively indifferent to it. Though I did get to play with Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke, which is always fun.

I was very excited when, recently, **Nightingale** was updated. You've all heard me twitter on about **Sycogerl64's** writing, but I do insist that you go and check her out because there isn't an author around who can beat her swift, economical elegance with words.

Also, there are puma summons this chapter. _Awesome_.

Thank you to all those kind people who review, thank you to all those even kinder people who suggest that I should have more reviews. I've always been relatively indifferent to review numbers – I'll never be an author who commands readers to review, since I'd much rather evoke a thoughtfulness than an obligation to review.

I'm mellow like that.

**In Next Week's Episode:**

'_He needed to find her. And find her first. Because she was his teammate, yes, and because she was the mother of his child, but mostly because you didn't pass through so much blood and war and death with someone and not emerge into the aftermath without some sort of steel bond tying you together.'_


	12. The Crime of Grief

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** The Crime of Grief

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her.

**Summary:**They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

As Kidoumaru pelted headlong through the treacherously narrow gorge, his heart hammering wildly against the confines of his ribs, the superior sum of his intelligence and determination was focused to a needlepoint on the disappearing dust-note of chakra that was Tayuya.

'_Please,'_ he prayed, though he was not a praying man. '_Please let me find her before she does anything rash. Before she does anything to damage the peace we've worked for. Or _herself_.'_

An outcrop of rock forced him to swerve and he cursed the loss of valuable seconds spent avoiding the obstacle. Tayuya was faster than himself, particularly when grief and rage added wings to her heels. The dark-skinned shinobi tucked his six arms more tightly against his body to reduce air resistance, ducked his head down and forged onwards.

On either side of him the canyon walls loomed ominously, blocking out most of the sunlight with their ochre bulk. It left him running through an odd sort of twilight gloam that was of no hindrance to someone with Kidoumaru's excellent night sight, but the dimness and the way the gorge walls leant towards him set nerves aflame in the pit of his stomach.

He needed to find her.

And find her first. Because she was his teammate, yes, and because she was the mother of his child, but mostly because you didn't pass through so much blood and war and death with someone and not emerge into the aftermath without some sort of steel bond tying you together.

She was one of his people, just as Jiroubou was, and Kidoumaru wouldn't let her go easily.

He turned a corner and, abruptly, the canyon ended, leaving Kidoumaru into sunlight that was almost too brilliant to bear.

oOo

Like most days in Suna, the morning of the second day of fights dawned bright and blisteringly hot. Having learned from the day before, the audience was festooned with brightly coloured parasols, like some gaudily blossoming tree, and the vendors who hawked their wares of chilled sugar cane juice and little cones of shaved ice with syrup were making a killing. Everywhere, fans served to move the hot, scratchy air in pointless eddies and the body of people gently simmered, sending off the musky odour of sweat to mingle with that of dust and hot stone.

The first day of fights had been competent, but nothing scintillating and there was a general air of expectation thrumming from person to person, escalating as it went.

Today, communal voices whispered in anticipation, today we want something special.

Up in the box reserved for the high-status guests, Naruto was hot under his Kage robes and grumpy as a result. It was alright for Sakura who was sitting there all fresh and sweat free in her vest and shorts, but then she wasn't wearing a bloody dress, was she?

"Stop scratching," she commanded, slapping his hand when he attempted to do so. "We're in public."

The offender nursed the back of his hand. "But it's _hot_, Sakura-chan," he whined, squirming in his seat. To his right he could see Gaara and Naruto was pretty sure that the bastard was smirking at him.

"Are you the Hokage or a five-year old?" Sakura wanted to know.

"The latter," Sasuke murmured from behind his ANBU mask and now Naruto was _positive_ that that was a smirk on Gaara's thin lips. The prick.

"Shut up, ANBU-_san_," Naruto growled through gritted teeth. "Unless you'd like me to kick your ass later."

A snort. "As if you could."

"Children…" At Sakura's saccharine warning tone, both Naruto and Sasuke looked down into the stadium bowl where, once more, the assembled genin were bowing to the Kage and Daimyo present. Naruto, belatedly, raised a hand, as did the other village leaders while, below them, Baki announced in ringing tones that the second day of matches was about to commence. "Play nice and watch the little kiddies beat each other up."

Naruto's smile was suddenly reminiscent. "Oi, remember when I pounded Neji into the ground at our first exam?"

"As if you ever let him forget it."

"Hey, someone's gotta let the chicks know that he isn't God's gift to women in a pretty, girly-haired package. 'Cause Tenten's totally hot in an older woman sort of way and she's _wasted_ on him. I mean, all of those weapons of hers are kind of kinky when you think about it—ow!"

Sasuke decided that his guard duties didn't extend to protecting Naruto from Sakura's (quiet and discreetly disguised from the surrounding spectators) wrath. Mostly because the blond idiot deserved it.

oOo

When Tenten sneezed, it wasn't a delicate and lady-like sneeze. Indeed, it was more like a miniature hurricane and left her blinking and watery-eyed in the bright sunlight.

"Bless you," Kankurou said, sounding mildly impressed.

"Thanks." Her response was suitably sarcastic, even as she groped for her handkerchief. She was pretty sure she had one somewhere on her, even if it was maybe a wee bit old and—

"Here."

Tenten glanced at the clean, pristine handkerchief Neji was offering her (_'Geez, it's even folded!'_) in some bemusement, but took it anyway. "Uh…thanks."

This, naturally, did not make a Kankurou a happy bunny (his lack of a handkerchief, clean or not, had prevented him from making the sneaky offer that Neji had) and his immediate instinct was to cry foul.

But, in the end, it was just a handkerchief and Kankurou had better things to worry about. Like inching his fingers forward spider-like towards where Tenten's tanned and freckled arm lay on the railing.

Tenten refolded the handkerchief enough that it was _somewhat_ recognisable as the perfect square with razor-blade corners Neji had given her. "I'll wash it," she promised before touching her nose delicately with two fingers. "Geez. Someone must have been talking about me."

Neji rolled his pale eyes at the superstition, but didn't say anything. His posture was as good as always and Kankurou sneered delicately (and inwardly) at the hours of blue-blooded pansy-ass training that must have gone into keeping that spine as rigid and poker straight as it was.

Aristocrats.

Not that Kankurou could talk, being both a Kazekage's son and a Kazekage's brother, but at least he was _human_.

Hyuuga-hime was just an icicle.

Tenten was looking down into the arena with interest as the first fight of the day kicked off. "That's one of the Suna genin, right? The girl with the orange hair? Temari-san says that she's supposed to be good."

"Who's the other one?" Kankurou asked, more as a distraction than anything else.

"Uh…" She squinted against the sun's glare reflecting off of the sand. "Rain, I think. His headband's hidden by his clothes—Kankurou, stop that."

Not at all chastised, Kankurou grinned and withdrew the hand she'd slapped so that he could peer down into the fighting grounds. "Oh, yeah, he's gotta be from Ame. He's all pasty and pale."

Neji arced an elegant brow. "That's a generality."

"That's the truth."

Quick to diffuse early bickering (she had been on a genin team with Lee and Neji after all) Tenten gestured down towards the fighting genin. "Hey, remember when we were their age?"

Neji sniffed. "As far as I recall _someone_ was trying to invade our village."

"Oi. We said sorry for that."

"Only once you had been soundly defeated."

"_Oi_!"

Tenten, exasperated, shook her head and washed her hands of all responsibility. Once that had gone the way of the dinosaurs, she allowed herself to snicker, casting an amused glance in Kankurou's direction. "Have you ever actually fought Shino since?"

The puppeteer made an unintelligible noise.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"…no."

Neji definitely smirked this time and Tenten laughed outright. She did, however, also clap a familiar hand on his shoulder, even if she had to stretch up a little to do so. "If it helps, I lose when I fight him – there's nothing I can do against the bugs."

"It's damn creepy, that's what it is."

Tenten continued to laugh, though the amused sound was punctuated by a little wince as, below them, the Rain genin got his ass handed to him. Thoroughly. The crowd cheered the winner on, Kankurou, Tenten and Neji adding their own alternately enthusiastic, sympathetic and polite applause to the hum and roar in the stadium.

The girl from Sand left the arena on her own two legs, the boy from Ame on a stretcher borne by two medicos. Chatter hummed up from the stalls as the sandy fighting area was swept and made ready for the next battle though service support seemed puzzled as to how to deal with the crater that was the result of a particularly nasty fire-jutsu. What had been the sand at the bottom of the bowl was now rapidly cooling molten glass, sullenly glowing and lava-like, and it was an angry enough colour that they just decided to leave it.

"Wise," Neji replied with a small smile when Tenten commented on it.

The fact that there was a smile other than a smirk on his face at all didn't sit well with Kankurou and his eyes rolled theatrically in their sockets. "Hey, Hyuuga-hime, you keeping score? As far as I'm aware, that's two wins for Suna genin and, wait, let me think, _none_ for any of your lot. Of course, only your girl fought, but I understand completely if you feel embarrassed – it was pretty humiliating looking back at it…"

The sharp pain in his side was Tenten's elbow digging into it. Even when he gave her his best mournful 'what was that for?' look, her chiding scowl remained.

"Be nice."

Kankurou let a corner of his mouth curl up in spite of, on her other side, the smugness that radiated outwards from Neji. "I'm always nice to you."

It was definitely worth the second elbow to the ribs.

When something else hit his ribs on the other side, Kankurou was fully ready to snap at the offender, but his ire wilted when, in a flash of green, the perpetrator made himself known.

"_Have I missed Sadaharu-kun's match!"_

Lee squeezed past Kankurou to flutter anxiously around Tenten, all jittery and edgy until the smaller Leaf-nin reached up to press her palms down on his shoulders, a smile hinted at around her eyes (the one that was visible, anyway) and mouth behind the amused exasperation.

"Calm down, Lee," she said soothingly. "There's still an Oto/Ame match first before Sadaharu fights. You're not late."

The lanky young man visibly relaxed, though energy still thrummed through the lean lines of his body. Kankurou, despite his protestations that he _liked_ being muscled and hench, spared a moment to cast a wistful glance at the lithe, corded expanse that was Lee's body.

Then he realised that he was staring at a man wearing green spandex. And died a little inside.

He still couldn't begrudge Lee the much-coveted spot beside Tenten, even if it meant that Neji was next to her now and he was now, because the guy was just so damn…nice. And bubbly. And youthful, and all sorts of other charming adjectives that, once you got used to them, stopped being annoying and just became charming.

Kind of.

Now that his panic was over, Lee turned to Kankurou with a cheery "Kankurou-san!" and the Suna-nin braced himself for the usual, exuberant conversation that occurred during an encounter with Konoha's Green Beast.

Once you entered, you could never leave. Such were the laws of the Lee.

oOo

There were certain rules about being a Hyuuga.

The first was that noses were there to be looked down, no matter how tall one was.

The second had a lot to do with perfecting that superior, haughty 'my blood is bluer than yours will ever be however much Koolaid you want to drink' look at a very early age.

The third – and this was the one Neji drew upon now – the third was that quiet displays of smugness annoyed folk vast amounts more than any verbal insult could.

His quiet satisfaction was, he thought, quite palpable judging by the dark look the oaf from Suna sent him before he had to give his attention back to Lee. Tenten, unobservant girl that she was when it came to anything that wasn't a mission, didn't notice and Neji allowed himself a (mental) fist pump of victory.

This round went to him.

By now, the second match of the day had kicked off and, in the arena, a dark haired Otonin faced one of the genin from Ame. Despite there being no Konoha competitor to cheer on, Tenten was watching with an interest that was close to avid, her one visible eye narrowed in thought. She was probably comparing the kids to the ones she taught back at the Academy, Neji mused with an emotion that would have been fondness in anyone who wasn't a Hyuuga.

While he and, later, Lee had seen the rank of jounin as the pinnacle of achievement, Tenten had seemed content with being a special-jounin and taking on a teaching role at the Academy, teaching leagues of too-enthusiastic, too-clumsy children to sling sharp-edged objects around. Or at least she had acted content – losing the use of one of her eyes in that last, great battle of the war had changed her in ways Neji couldn't imagine.

To him, the loss of sight – however incomplete – could not be imagined.

But Tenten, as always, had been adaptable and even though she was no longer highly suitable for missions in the way that he and Lee were, she put her skills to the best use possible.

Even if he missed having her fighting beside him.

Since Hyuuga also didn't do 'remorseful' Neji abandoned that train of thought and watched Tenten instead. Her blind eye was towards him, hidden behind its frank covering of black cloth, so there was little chance of her noticing his scrutiny.

Then again he was a Hyuuga and the Hyuuga were always watching, whether they appeared to be or not.

Big Brother had nothing on them.

In the desert heat, a thin sheen of perspiration dusted her brow, though the well-milked coffee shade of her skin said that she didn't burn at least in the hot desert sun. Wisps of hair escaped the triple bindings of her buns, her hitai-ate and her eye-patch, it would be easy to compare her to girls like Sakura and Ino, prettier, flashier girls and dismiss her. Even for Neji, for whom aesthetics were of little consequence so long as the aesthetic was _neat,_ it was easy to work out that Tenten wasn't the prettiest girl around.

The eye patch didn't help.

And it wasn't as if she was the strongest either. She could beat Ino, would always lose to Sakura, and didn't even bother fighting Hinata anymore. Lee had always been stronger and she only fought Neji because her skill-set uniquely served as a workout for his own abilities. She was strong, yes, and competent too, but others had advantages that she didn't.

Oh, and she wasn't a Hyuuga. Being the family prodigy that he was, Neji was expected to meld his own genetic code with that of the female in his family with the strongest Byakugan possible to pass on his beneficial alleles, so he'd been through many years of indoctrination regarding women from outside the clan as taboo.

…so why did she fascinate him?

On the one hand, he'd known her since she was seven, had been on a team with her since he was twelve, had battled besides her for too many years and survived too many battles, so it wasn't as if there was anything _new_ to learn about her – he already knew it! On the other…she was unfathomable, given to certain unpredictabilities despite her steady nature.

In her sheer normalcy, she was as different from the aristocratic Hyuuga as chalk was from cheese.

And though he resented the expectation that everybody and their mother seemed to have that he and she would somehow ended up together and was almost determined not to satisfy the gossips, he also wasn't quite ready to hand her over to someone else.

Hence the dislike for Kankurou.

All of this had traversed the emotional pathways of his brain without so much as a hint of their passage showing on the cool, considering features his face bore like a thumbprint.

In short…well, was there even a short version of this tangled-yarn mess? In some sort of _brief_ sense, Neji was pretty sure he didn't love her. Like her, maybe, and she was always going to be on his list of people for whom he would sacrifice his life for without a second's thought (Hinata and Lee, as well, and probably even Naruto if you wanted to know) but, right now, not love.

But he still wasn't willing to share.

As he absently cast his eyes over the slim, brown expanse of her forearm, he felt the hairs on the nape of his neck stand to attention, a prickling, sensitive _awareness_ and, for a moment, he was shocked that she could evoke such a response from him.

Then he realised that it had nothing to do with Tenten's arm, however smooth and rounded, and the Hyuuga took in the sudden wave of heightened, deadly chakra that rippled out from the arena like a tsunami with something like surprise.

"Oh," Tenten said dumbly next to him. "_Oh_." Perhaps that was all that she could say. Personally, Neji thought that 'oh no' was perhaps more apt, but, for once, his anal retentive nature let the chance to correct her slide past him, mostly because he was watching the scene in front of them unfold with a quiet sort of horror.

Down in the arena, an ocean raged.

Neji wouldn't have thought it possible. Water jutsu, however simple, relied upon the amount of water in the surroundings – hidden in flowers and trees, vapour in the air, the plasma in a person's blood. Water didn't come from just anywhere – it was like energy, not able to be created or destroyed, only transformed.

Yet, somehow, a mere genin from Ame had conjured a raging typhoon that roared against the sandy walls of the arena. Angry floodwaters that were enclosed in the stadium thundered around in a deadly spiral, blue depths rapidly turning a sickly yellow at the edges where loose sand discoloured at it.

And, somewhere in the midst of all that elemental fury, a small, lanky body fought to keep its head above the surface.

Even with Neji's eyes, it took him a while to locate the source of all the water. The other genin, the one from Ame, crouched on the concave wall of the arena, seemingly still having enough chakra after his attack to adhere to the flattened sand by a single kneecap and the sole of one foot. Almost directly opposite Neji, he was far enough away that the Leaf jounin couldn't see his lips moving or what seals his flickering hands shaped, but the results were clear enough when, with a cry of exertion, the child flung his arm out.

And death rained down on the water's surface.

Later, Neji would label this as flawless, heartless planning. Filling the battle environment with water was only the first step – using all of that liquid as a medium for the lightning that crackled over the turbulent surface, sending up steam in roaring columns as water broke the glass ceiling and burst up, exultantly, into the sky was the clincher. But, mostly, he'd just be horrified at the vastness of it all and the dreadful finality that it brought to bear.

A collective sort of hush feel over the stadium. It was a breathless, anxious quiet and no one wanted to be the traitor to break it, though break it would.

Mist cleared. Water stilled and turned to liquid glass, a mirror of the burning azure sky.

The film of the water's surface gently broke, but still managed to cling to the curve of a cheek, a shaggy lock of dark hair, the lax line of a finger. The boy from Sound floated, limp and graceful, with a silent stadium as his audience.

Something moved in that shocked, static environment and Neji watched as, across from him, a woman with red, red hair and dark wells of horror for eyes got to her feet.

oOo

The brat couldn't be dead.

It was a trick. Some water and a few sparks of lightning couldn't kill him, not someone she'd spent so long teaching that you did everything and anything just to survive. He was playing dead, laying low, waiting for the right moment…

The brat couldn't be dead.

He needed to get up. Any minute now he'd be crawling to his feet with that idiotic grin on his face. 'Gotcha!' he'd crow, like his trick wasn't at all transparent. And then he'd pull something out of his ass to win, like he always did. Unless it was Dai – he could never beat Dai. Or Kaede, when she was having a good day.

_Seiichi_ couldn't be dead. Not him.

Tayuya was on her feet by now, hands turning white with the strain as she gripped the railing like a lifeline.

She'd always gone through life with a certain awareness (it came with being a genjutsu master) and the people she shared that life with occupied certain portions of her mind. Kidoumaru was a dark, secretive sort of presence, his chakra leaping out at odd moments to surprise her with all the wickedness of a child. Jiroubou was a steady, bright blaze – eternal and ever present. Dai's self had a purple sort of tinge to it, sometimes more of an absence of anything flashier than a presence, while Kaede's chakra identified her by being as pure and sunny and _giggly_ as possible.

And she'd always read Seiichi as fireworks, fireworks that were _no longer there_.

A high, painful keening grew in her ears and it took her a while to recognise the voice as her own.

oOo

"Tayuya, stop!"

The woman tried to wrench her arm out of his grasp, but Kidoumaru had six to her two and held on grimly. He'd caught his teammate before she'd reached the Ame-genin, but it had been a close thing – she'd launched herself from the viewing platform with an unearthly sort of speed.

And even if he too wanted to take Seiichi's life out of the genin's skin, he couldn't allow her to spark a war in front of all these witnesses.

Grief had to take a back seat.

She still fought him, too maddened by grief to think to use real combat skills, only writhing and struggling to be free of his grip.

People were flickering down into the arena in a thick, urgent rainstorm of shinobi from all nations. Death, while anticipated in the chuunin exams, was never received well and many of the high-ranking enforcers were pre-empting trouble.

A familiar face was one of them.

"Control her," Sasuke snapped, stalking across the water's surface towards them. Temari wasn't far behind him, the nervous tension they all felt apparent on her face.

Part of Kidoumaru would always almost instinctively wish to obey any order from Sasuke-sama, but he ignored that minority. "Keep out of it." The snapped comment wasn't at all diplomatic, but fuck diplomacy – he had more important matters to waste neurones on. Tayuya's nails were scrabbling madly against his skin and, blunt and bitten as they were, blood welled up in their ragged passage.

"Tayuya._ Tayuya_." Nothing. Kidoumaru regarded her for a moment and then, coolly, drew back one of his arms and slapped her around the face. The blow didn't make the wildness dissipate from her eyes, but she did turn her face up towards him and he caught her chin to keep it here. "You need to stop." Something in the dilation of her pupils hinted that she was about to speak—to argue, to rebel—but he cut her off. "He was a soldier, Tayuya, and soldiers die." The sharp, callous words sliced his tongue as he said them and his throat may as well have been in tatters, but still they came forth in their calculated little lines. "I forbid you to make a scene, Tayuya, and I forbid you from laying a finger on that genin."

Long fingers more suited to music than physical violence gripped his wrist and dug into the sensitive places between sinew and bone. Kidoumaru didn't even twitch, only turning her face (however unwilling) towards the sad bundle that used to be Seiichi. Dai and Kaede were already at his side. The boy was unabashedly crying while his blonde teammate looked lost as she rested one hand on his shoulder and the other on Seiichi's forehead.

Tayuya stilled abruptly. Beneath the rough pad of one finger, Kidoumaru could feel her pulse beating rapidly through the paper-thin skin of her wrist.

It should have been a warning.

In a whirl of pale cloth and scarlet hair she was gone, leaves drifting down in the space her body had once inhabited. Kidoumaru swore – he'd thought that the sight of Seiichi would at least have been enough to shock her back into sensibility – and flickered after her.

oOo

"We can't let them out of our sight," Temari said urgently in Gaara's ear, straining to keep her voice low despite the worry that kept her muscles stretched-bow tense.

A nod was all the prompting she needed to follow the two rapidly disappearing Otonin.

oOo

"Sasuke, you go too."

For once, the Uchiha didn't bridle at taking orders from his Hokage. Mostly because Naruto's face was as far from its normal defiant goofiness as possible. It made him look old, more serious, and Sasuke didn't like the reminder that they'd all moved on in the years since they were children.

"Yes."

In a whisper, he was gone. He was the natural one to send, of course.

He knew them best after all.

oOo

Shading his eyes against the sudden burst of light, Kidoumaru skidded to a halt. The landscape had morphed gradually into a wasteland, some amalgamation of the deserts of Suna and the lowlands of Kawa that was flat with little cover to break the monotony.

In the midst of all that barren ground stood Tayuya. A wind from River country's direction sent her long hair tangling around her slight form, smelling of wet earth and growing things. It was a change after the desiccated heat of Sand.

Her dark gaze was almost mocking – scornful – and Kidoumaru hadn't seen her look so cruel for years.

He mourned the circumstances that had wrenched such an expression from her.

When she spoke, her voice had menace to it. "Someone," she said, and her hair screamed danger against the muted landscape, "is going to fucking _die_ for this."

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

This was one of those chapters that I had in mind when Secondhand Faith first formed in my mind and, in some ways, I'm quite disappointed with my skills when it came to putting some of those ideas on paper.

I like the beginning. I like the end. I just feel that I didn't do the middle section justice.

I suppose the purpose of the first eleven chapters was to lay the scene for this chapter and the ones that follow. The action starts here, people, and I hope the climb to where we are now leaves you with an understanding of how the characters will act from now on.

I know. Eleven chapters. I _need_ to learn to be more succinct.

You all know that I adore your feedback and it's always useful. For example, Claymade pointed out a silly error I'd made regarding Kiba and Tayuya in chapter eleven, which has now been fixed. Thank you for that! And thank you all for your kind words. I write because I need to get these words and stories out of my head, but your feedback adds a certain fulfillment to it – if even one person enjoyed it, I'd feel justified in posting it.

**In Next Week's Episode:**

"_This is off the record, Kidoumaru-san. We have unfinished business, her and I. We will not be long."_

"_Damn straight we won't be long," Tayuya spat. "I'll wipe the floor with you Sand-bitch."_

_Temari's answering smile was chilly, but a little wild around the edges. "We'll see."_


	13. Brace for Impact

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** Brace for Impact

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

Tayuya had known that she could outrun Kidoumaru, but her flight through the desert had roused an anger within her.

Now she was just spoiling for a fight and she didn't particularly give a shit who it was with. Stopping near the border between Suna and Kawa meant that it would probably be Kidoumaru and she couldn't conjure up the right emotions to care.

Right on time, he'd arrived all ready to stop her and bring her home like a good little girl and Tayuya wasn't going to be having any of it. She was sick to the teeth of diplomacy, this fraternising with sycophants who sneered while the blood of her people lay on their hands. She was sick of Suna, the place she had left all those years ago without the intention of every returning. She was sick of things just…_happening_.

She had fixed with him a stare that burned. "Someone," she had said, "is going to fucking _die_ for this."

"Tayu—" Kidoumaru started, then tensed as others joined them in the dreariness of Suna's edge.

Tayuya felt something like a snarl build up in the confines of her throat because spectators Were. Not. Welcome. The sound nearly birthed itself into existence when it turned out to be the Sand-bitch and…

"Well, well, well," she drawled, mocking and disdainful at the same time. "If it isn't Sasuke-_sama_. Deserting again? You do make a fucking habit of that, you bastard." By the end of the last sentence, her semblance of distance dissolved and the obscenities were spat with a sizeable dollop of venom.

The Uchiha eyed her coolly and didn't respond. His silence made her bristle further – who the fuck did he think he was to still act so superior? The days where she obeyed his orders were long gone, along with her village's pride.

It was Temari who spoke in the end. "We're here to bring you back, Otonin." Her eyes were like cold shards of jade and her hand rested pointedly on the stem of her fan.

"Tayuya, please." It was the please that made Tayuya look at him and she knew Kidoumaru well enough to see the desperation in his eyes that a stranger wouldn't. "We're here on Suna's hospitality – don't make them think about rescinding it."

And there it was. Her going back wasn't necessary because the shinobi of Oto stuck together – it was because Kidoumaru didn't want his precious, potential alliance to drain out of his many fingers because of her. The same _ass-kissing shit_ all over again.

"Really?" Tayuya's voice was like a nail drawn over glass. Then she moved, faster than the eye could follow, and the feel of Temari's jaw under her knuckles made her pulse race in anticipation. Tayuya stood over the Sand-bitch where's she'd fallen and didn't try to hide the rage and bloodlust that radiated from her very pores. "_Make me_."

"Tayuya!" Kidoumaru thundered and would have made a move to secure her had Temari not thrown up a hand to halt him. She didn't look at him, narrowed eyes firmly latched upon the seething Tayuya who occupied most of her attention, but her words held authority in their timbre and force.

"This is off the record, Kidoumaru-san. We have unfinished business, her and I. We will not be long."

"Damn straight we won't be long," Tayuya spat. "I'll wipe the floor with you Sand-bitch."

Temari's answering smile was chilly, but a little wild around the edges. "We'll see." She stood and touched a hand to her swollen lip. "You hit me once." She spat out a mouthful of blood at Tayuya's feet. "It won't happen again."

Her blood on the ground mirrored the challenge in Tayuya's bottomless eyes.

oOo

According to the compilations of information on foreign shinobi that circulated around, Temari of the Sand was an exemplary kunoichi in a male-dominated profession. She had proved herself to be a strong commander during the Sound-Sand-Fire wars when her views on long-term strategies had been essential, as well as a top-class fighter when it came to a battle, whether one-on-one or a full melee. Immense long-range offensive power, a strong defence, impeccable elemental skills and a summons animal to boot – she was a name that was well-known in the shinobi world; respected as well, and sometimes feared.

Some said it obviously ran in the family.

The point was, Kidoumaru thought with some trepidation, she had beaten Tayuya once before and that was before she'd had nine years to improve. Not that Tayuya hadn't as well, but rage and grief would dull her skills and out here, without any witnesses, he didn't want to lose another of his people today.

Seiichi was loss enough.

"No trees for you to hide behind today," Temari taunted as she unfurled her fan with the swiftness of long practice and the ease of a weapon that was practically a limb.

Tayuya's flute had been out since the start and her eyes narrowed in irritation. "No trees for you to drop on me instead of fighting face-to-face," was her retort.

…no. There was no way to stop this. The dark-skinned shinobi cast a quick glance in Sasuke's direction, but the young man was standing back with his arms folded and an unreadable expression on his face. No help would come from him.

Kidoumaru hadn't really expected any.

With a wince and a silent appeal to any higher powers that could make this scenario any less hazardous, he followed his former leader's example and moved out of harm's way.

This proved prudent. Temari's first attack pulled no punches and, even where he was standing on the outskirts, Kidoumaru had to shield his face against the dust and dirt that the straggles of wind threw up at him. A gale in condensed form it was, all focused on Tayuya, except it only hit the place where Tayuya had once been. The ground suffered, but his companion had melted away.

Of the three of them left, Tayuya had always been the swiftest and her speed had only increased with age and experience. Fighting her was fine, even easy, if you could force her into a purely taijutsu encounter – it was catching her that was the problem, and catching her before she caught _you_ in one of her cruelly trapping genjutsu casts. Or her just sending her demons after you.

And as if three hadn't been enough, Tayuya had added another two to her repertoire.

Temari must have been aware of that and had condensed herself into a defensive stance, fan cocked and at the ready, eyes and ears watchful and open.

The Kazekage's sister wasn't the only one with a reputation. Tayuya of Oto was a name to be wary of and her skills were neither secret nor belittled. You watched out for the demons and the genjutsu and, most of all, that flute of hers. It was a drawback – no attack without the flute, no silence so long as the flute would send out its melodic warning.

Kidoumaru heard it at the same time as the blonde kunoichi did, coming from behind a boulder to the south. With a satisfied 'there you are' smile, Temari swung her fan and gave birth to a gale with razor-edged wings. The knife of wind sliced into the rock and, in a rainstorm of granite shards, the thing exploded.

"Got you," Kidoumaru heard Temari murmur under her breath and the Otonin repressed a tight smile – he'd seen this trick of Tayuya's before. He knew what Temari would see when the dust cloud cleared.

Her look of triumph slipped away like the morning mist when the air cleared enough for her to see the small black radio that sent a recording of a flute playing on an endless loop.

"No," Tayuya said from behind Temari. "Got _you_." Her hands shaped notes too fast for Kidoumaru to gauge. "Sweet dreams, bitch."

oOo

Temari hung, weightless, in the dark place. She was aware that her mind was trapped in a genjutsu, that she'd only just entered this construct within her mind, but it felt as if she'd been there for an eternity and a day.

Somewhere, water dripped.

oOo

"Don't kill her, Tayuya."

The kunoichi wanted to scream. "Why the hell not, shithead?" she snarled. One hand stroked the hilt of the tanto she'd started carrying at the small of her back during the war.

"Because we need her alive."

"Fuck needing her." Her fingers curled. Felt cold steel. Longed to draw it across a soft throat. "And fuck _you_. Whose damn side are you on, Kidoumaru?"

oOo

She struggled against her invisible bonds. Even with her eyes open and straining (and she knew they were open because her eyelashes brushed her skin when she blinked) only velvety blackness met them. Her hands flexed, clenching and unclenching, and her skin turned cold where fear sweat prickled into existence.

Somewhere, metal scraped against metal and she froze at the sound.

oOo

Exasperated beyond all belief by her insistence on always being stubborn and almost mad with fear, Kidoumaru's usually calculated mellowness flexed at its weak points, threatening to splinter.

"Yours, always _yours_, you stupid woman," he snapped. "Don't you know that by now? And just this once, can't you trust me to make the right decision?" He snorted, an angry puff of air through his nose. "Since you're clearly incapable of doing so yourself if you're willing to kill the sister of the Kazekage when you have no real grudge against her."

He saw Tayuya bristle, but that was acceptable in that she hadn't stabbed someone.

Yet.

oOo

Temari threw her head back and screamed when it began. What had once been total darkness turned into darkness lit by lines of red light that, as she struggled to stay still long enough to watch one, quavered and bent, curving around some invisible object.

It was her arm, she realised, and the red trail of light was laid down by her flowing blood as those unseen weapons slowly began to peel her skin back from her flesh.

Her eyes went wide when the sharp edge of an invisible blade touched her cheek.

Somewhere, her blood made a sound when it hit the ground, but she couldn't hear it over her own voice.

oOo

"No real grudge?" Tayuya's voice rose in anger until it was nearly a yell. "No _fucking_ grudge?"

Right now, the kunoichi was breaking up inside, which meant that her anger flowed freely and indiscriminately. Kidoumaru was as good a target as Temari was, and if the Uchiha wanted to get involved, she'd be happy to gut him, just to be fair.

"Tayuya…" Kidoumaru said and he sounded tired.

Tayuya would have preferred it if he'd been angry back, if he'd cursed and yelled and attacked her. It was the sadness in his voice, and the resignation too, that made her want to scream.

She hated the way her name sounded said in his voice.

oOo

Temari hurt.

'Hurt' didn't encompass it, but she forced her consciousness to condense all of that pain into that single word. Hurt. A person could overcome hurt. A person could defeat hurt.

So, even as those unseen blades slowly peeled the skin back from her body, she drew further into herself, to a quieter place, and fought to regulate her chakra.

Hurt was nothing to a kunoichi of the Sand.

oOo

"If you're done reasoning with her, can we just knock her out?" Sasuke remarked dryly.

"Try not to provoke her Sasuke-sama…"

oOo

For all her bravado, the genjutsu with its pain-that-wasn't-real-pain was well oiled and practically flawless. She screamed more than once when it became too much even if the logical part of her knew that her flesh and blood body was unharmed.

But not for long if Tayuya truly didn't care about starting another war, even when her nation was the weaker one.

Pain disrupted her chakra manipulation, sent it spinning out of her mental grasp, and she lost count of her many attempts she'd had, but there was a moment where _sheer bull-headed grit_ overcame the wash of red, hot pain and things slotted into place and relief momentarily drowned out her agony.

Temari's heart skipped a beat and her world shattered like so much cheap glass.

oOo

"Keep your fucking nose out of it, Uchiha."

Tayuya swept her hair out of her eyes, irritated with the ragged hang of bangs that had gone too long without the application of the irreverent edge of a kunai. She was beset on all sides it seemed; old teammates, current ones, the woman who'd nearly called her all those years ago, and her hostility rose against them as a collective whole.

The sense of betrayal was unfamiliar and unwelcome.

Just not nearly as unwelcome as the unexpected blast of compressed air which sent her on a rise and fall journey that ended on the ground. Painfully.

The woman stumbled to her feet, her cheek grazed and already oozing blood and her knee weak where it had twisted beneath her, but upright all the same so that she could bare her teeth in Temari's direction.

Temari's returning look was cool. Aside from the sweat that painted a sheen on her forehead and stained her clothes under her arms and across her clavicles she was unharmed and, evidently, able to continue their fight from where it had been left.

"Tough genjutsu," the Sand kunoichi said. "The flaying was a nice touch." Green eyes hardened. "But not unbreakable."

The routine curses spilled from Tayuya's lips, but her mind was more occupied with the task of seething – she'd allowed Kidoumaru and Sasuke to distract her from the vulnerable body she'd had access to when she'd had the chance to kill the woman who'd nearly done the same to her nine years ago.

…bastard spider had known what he was doing and he was gonna pay for that at some point.

Temari was, perhaps, a more pressing issue at the moment though and Tayuya had to perform squirrel-hop after squirrel-hop because of the barrage of wind slices the blonde kept sending after her. The landscape was too flat for there to be much to hide behind and bounce after bounce left her stomach flopping in the freefall until she managed to duck behind a scrubby bush. From there, she swiftly translocated to a spot on the other side from where the Sand-bitch thought she was.

This gave her breathing space. Only about thirty seconds worth once Temari had flattened the innocent bush and realised her mistake, but time enough to play the basic melody her fingers knew by sheer muscle memory and bring her demons into this plane of existence.

Tayuya was not fond of her summons in the way that Kidoumaru was where his spiders were concerned; she didn't consider them pets or, indeed, entities that required affection or even acknowledgement. She didn't coddle them and she spared little thought for the outcome of any of them that were wounded in battle – they just turned up whole and unharmed the next time she conjured them, so mortality wasn't an issue. But there were moments when they looked at her with empty, blank faces (some with smoothed over spaces where eyes _should_ have been) and a shiver ran up her spine at their vacant expectation.

Today was not one of those moments.

Her temper had always been prone to war with her logic and her anger was inversely proportional to the degree of planning that went into a battle. The higher her ire, the more irrational her attacks.

Her rage stemmed from grief and some sort of broken dam within her, so her methods were neither subtle or elegant. Her wrath sent five large and obedient demons on a collision course with Temari, their charge written in the play of her fingers across silver metal.

She watched as Temari, faced with five very earthy foes, took the easy way out and launched herself up into the sky to ride the currents of the wind on her fan.

'_Not a problem_,' Tayuya thought almost sardonically as her fingers modulated themselves to the flourishes that told her demons to let loose their chakra-hungry appendages.

Before, Temari had five fairly earth-bound enemies to deal with. Now she still had five, just ones that couldn't be hit and for whom gravity was not a problem. The filmy lengths wove across the sky with an obvious target – Temari – but just randomly enough that predicting their movements was difficult.

Watching the Suna-nin try to dispatch them and ineffectually so made her day as good as a day could ever be after Seiichi had died and people had come after her and Kidoumaru had just stood there as the walls came tumbling down.

Tayuya smirked when one of Temari's wind attacks severed a demon's arm. "Not gonna work," she taunted and, true to her word, the zombie-like summon came close to snagging the wind-user. "Hit them as much as you want, they're still not gonna fall down."

"They might not, but you will."

That was all the warning Tayuya had before a nipped thumb and blood symbols brought an oversized weasel displacing the air with a pop that hurt her ears.

With a brief thought of 'Not again!' Tayuya rushed to play notes that she couldn't hear over the roaring wind.

oOo

Temari was _really_ getting tired of this. Each time she thought she'd definitely got the girl, chance always seemed to fall on the Soundie's side.

This time when the dust from Kamatari's sickle attack cleared, it was the back of one of those cursed summons that was revealed instead of the battered form she'd hoped for. And, as she watched, the majority of the demon's left side crumbled into dirt and Tayuya's smirk, when it came into view, _pissed_ her off.

"Your aim's gotten as saggy as your ass as you've gotten older, whore."

oOo

What Tayuya wasn't telling Temari was that, had she not sacrificed the left side of one of her demon's as a shield, there probably wouldn't have been enough of her skin left to use as a dishrag. And even _with_ the shield, her skin had a raw feeling to it and one of the larger rocks had meandered around the demon to slam into her temple. Head wounds were pesky and this one seemed determined to drown her right eye in her own blood. She wiped it with the back of one hand and only succeeded in spreading it over more of her skin.

"Damn," she muttered to herself as she made her fingers flow with chakra and pressed it against the gash. It wasn't an advanced medical jutsu that healed flesh and sinew; at best, it was a sort of shinobi equivalent of Silly Glue, just with chakra instead of adhesive. And so long as it pulled the edges of the wound together and stopped the bleeding for at least as long as it would take her to _beat_ the blonde from Suna, she'd be satisfied.

She cursed when yet another whirlwind struck where she'd been crouching. The bitch just didn't give her a moment to collect herself.

So it was back to business with her fingers a-playing and her demons a-chasing and Temari casting a sharp shadow on the ground as she flitted about on that ridiculous fan of hers.

The fight was starting to drain her chakra reserves and the seal on the back of her neck twinged. That unsettled her more than the sporadic attacks Temari found time to launch at her did – her curse seal hadn't so much as murmured for years now.

'_You haven't been as angry as this in years_,' a voice in her head reminded her.

Tayuya despised self-introspection both in and out of battle and would have quashed that voice had Temari not effectively done so for her by breaking the pattern of her attacks and sending a wash of kunai towards her, helped along by a gust of wind.

The projectiles themselves were easy enough to avoid, but it was a sign that Tayuya had already allowed herself to be lulled into a routine of attack and defend. She narrowed dark eyes at the soaring figure and, quite deliberately, gave her the finger.

She_almost_ thought that she heard the Uchiha laugh at that.

The pale bird of Temari's fun suddenly made an abrupt turn and then the sky was full of them, sweeping and wheeling in a dizzying display of acrobatics. A distant memory of a kite festival where trailing ribbons had written stories in the sky in a foreign script drifted through the confines of her mind, but this flock of paper and wood was much more sinister with its multitude of purple eyes staring down at her.

Tayuya's own confusion showed in her demons and they faltered, turning this way and that as their quarry was lost in a sea of identical targets.

Her jaw set itself grimly. If she couldn't find the real one, she'd just have to beat them all.

This was easier said than done. Five demons versus over a score of highly agile kunoichi made for slow going and the melodies required to control her beasts made for some complex finger movements.

It didn't help that all of them weren't above attacking her when her attention was elsewhere.

Sweat broke out on Tayuya's brow as she dodged yet another wind attack, vaguely compensated for when one of her demons took out the attacking Temari in a puff of smoke and a handful of sand. There was no time to gloat as another kunoichi soared down, fan brandished, and Tayuya jumped backwards to avoid the deadly blade of air, only to hit…

…fur?

Startled into removing her lips from the mouthpiece, Tayuya looked up into a whiskered face.

"Forget about me?" the blonde's damn weasel drawled.

"_Shit_!" was all Tayuya had to say as she made a desperate lunge to the side, but the escape attempt was aborted when a large paw came down on her. Her breath escaped her in a pained cry and her ribs creaked painfully under the weight of the scythe-wielding animal.

The blunt face came within inches of hers and Tayuya had a very good view of rather sharp teeth as the animal examined her. "You're a rather pesky creature," it growled contemplatively. "I thought I'd already killed you once. Oh well, things just sometimes take a second try."

Those impossibly large jaws opened and Tayuya didn't even have enough breath to cry out as they slammed shut.

When she opened her eyes, her face was pressed into a familiar tunic and Kidoumaru's spicy scent fought with the tang of her own blood.

Her ribs screamed in protest as she squirmed into a position where she could see his face, but she ignored them, just as she ignored the heart hammering in their cage. "What the fu-."

"Enough," he said, interrupting her. "No more of this foolishness."

Her anger, which had petered as her energy had, burned with renewed vigour and this time when she squirmed, it was with real intent to get free and _hurt_ him.

"_Foolishness!_" she cried in outrage. Footsteps announced that Temari had set foot on ground once more and the sight of the relatively unharmed kunoichi only frustrated Tayuya all the more. "Why can't I _fucking_ beat you? Why do you _always_ win?"

To her shame and horror, dampness lined the bottoms of her eyes. Tayuya_never_ cried and the weakness that she was showing now repelled her, but not as much as the slight look of pity she could see in Temari's eyes now that the fire of battle had dimmed.

Don't look at me, she wanted to say. "What more do you need to take away from us?" she spat instead. "You weren't content with your own affairs so you had to come running to the Leaf's rescue. What business of yours was it whether we had the Uchiha or not?"

"Tayuya…"

"And now you lord it over us, Mighty Suna with Mighty Konoha, when once it was your village begging ours for aid." She spat blood between them in an eerie recollection of the beginning of their fight, when it had been Temari's upon the ground. "But once we'd been decimated, _then_ it was alright for you to parade us around as a sign to those who even wanted to think about fucking with your shitt _cowardly_ alliance. You weren't content with killing us, you had to take away our spirit as well when you made us _beg_ to join your fucking exams."

"_Tayuya_."

"No, Kidoumaru, I won't fucking shut up." An accusing finger shot out with its point levelled at Temari's defensive face and Tayuya was shocked to see something like guilt on the blonde's face. It didn't halt her tirade though – this had been simmering for nine years and, today, that resentment was spewing forth. "Her trash brother _killed_ Sakon and Ukon. Tell me that you don't hate them for that, even a fucking little?"

Kidoumaru's silence was telling.

"Is this what it's all about?" The tight voice that broke the quiet, surprisingly, belonged to Temari. "All this hate is because of what we took from you?"

Tayuya drew herself up as far as a woman with broken ribs could do when wrapped up in the six arms of her dark-skinned comrade. "What else?" she demanded.

Mixed emotions flickered across Temari's face, ones obvious enough that even Tayuya could see them. "Your people killed my father, you know."

Tayuya remained looking defiant.

Temari sighed and rubbed her temples with her free hand, but Tayuya frowned when she and Sasuke shared some sort of private look.

A decision must have been made because the blonde nodded almost imperceptibly and shouldered her fan.

"Bring her," she told Kidoumaru. When he looked dubious, she scowled. "She won't be harmed here or back in the village if that's what you're worried about."

"Hey, I can look after myself, you—mmph."

Even as Tayuya bit his palm, Kidoumaru nodded. "We'll come."

As all four of them flickered out of view, only the broken landscape was left as evidence of how another war had nearly been born for the wind and rain to erase from history.

oOo

Kidoumaru had to admit to some suspicion as to just what Temari's intentions were. The journey back to the village had been conducted in silence – ominous when he was unsure as to what sort of reception would be awaiting them in spite of Temari's assurances.

She may have been the Kazekage's sister, but it was her brother whose word was final.

Temari ignored the more conventional path through the streets below and instead led them across the rooftops towards a building that Kidoumaru and the other foreign shinobi had been told was off-limits to visitors. Down on the ground, Temari shaped some sort of unlocking seal and then pushed the door open.

"I don't like this…" Tayuya mumbled at chest-level. She'd been in no shape to travel back on her own too feet, but neither would she submit to being carried. In the end, Kidoumaru had been forced to give her a light sedative (against her will, obviously) and the effects were still wearing off, leaving her groggy and more pliable than usual.

But just as suspicious, apparently.

"I know," he said grimly, stepping over the threshold. "But think how boring life would be if it was sunshine and roses all the time."

"You haven't changed much," Sasuke commented dryly as he followed, closing the door behind them. Kidoumaru disliked the sound it made – it was too reminiscent of a jail door slamming shut.

His returning smile was the creepiest one in his repertoire. "So you think, Sasuke-sama." He flashed an extra few teeth, just for good measure.

Sasuke was unfazed. "Temari walks quickly – you might want to catch up."

"Yes, sir," Kidoumaru said ironically and increased the length of his stride until he was level once more with the Suna kunoichi.

They climbed several floors, passing checkpoints on each. The guards always looked somewhat shocked when they saw who was following their jounin, but Temari seemed to have enough on-site clearance power to get them through each one.

Just as Kidoumaru was contemplating putting Tayuya down so that she could walk for herself, Temari abruptly stopped. The door they now faced was locked with the same kind of seal that she'd unlocked at the entrance, plus two guards on either side who bowed in Temari's direction.

Her hands flickered in a complicated set of seals and, once they were done, she gestured to the two guards. Obediently, they too shaped seals (a triple binding, he realised) and with a final burst of chakra that dissipated slowly in the hot, muggy air, the door was unlocked.

Temari turned, her expression unreadable. "This, at least, I can give back to you," was all she said before she moved out of the way.

"Put me down," Tayuya said suddenly. Despite the obvious drowsiness in her voice, the statement was definitely an order.

He let her down gently, but looped one of his arms around her waist for support. "Okay?" he asked.

Her look was dark. "Fuck off," she snapped, but he noted that she didn't pull away from his steadying arm so he left it there.

He had to admit to some trepidation as he faced the door with the mystery behind it. But, as he reminded himself, he'd been a soldier of Orochimaru-sama and he'd seen some _freaky_ shit in his time.

Nothing really fazed him anymore.

"Ready?" he asked, the question as much for himself as it was for Tayuya.

"Just open the door, shithead," came the grumbled reply and Kidoumaru had to smile at that.

The door gave easily under the flat of his hand, well-oiled hinges operating smoothly.

Kidoumaru felt the bite of Tayuya's blunt fingernails as they dug into his skin and heard her sudden intake of breath. His own airways seemed oddly constricted and he had to blink (once, twice, three times) to make sure that this wasn't some sort of trick the mind played on those who had given up after far too long.

"Well," Sakon said from his chair by the window while a sleepy-looking Ukon sat up on one of the beds. "You're not the girl with lunch."

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

This is another of those plot developments I've been waiting for ages to write (and note my very loose use of the word 'plot' here.) As if I'd be cruel enough to actually kill off some of the Sound Four – I'm surprised that people didn't see this coming.

That said, my screenwriter tendencies showed through with the fight scene, I fear – very choppy, but I suppose that reflects the messiness of the battle I was trying to portray. I much prefer the second half of this chapter anyway and at over five thousand words, you'll have to forgive me for the time it took to get this one out.

A few notes – I've updated my profile into something vaguely useful, so check there for info on future and current fics. I've also signed up with ff dot net's beta service, so if you ever need a beta, drop me a line. :D

Again, thanks to reviewers, particularly **TaintedMoonlight** and **Kajiin** for their kind, kind, _inspiring_ words.

(Also, for those who are interested, this story's over fifty thousand words now. I am shocked to say the least.)

**In Next Week's Episode:**

'_Weak people are pussies because they let fear order them around. People are only strong when they take fear and make it fucking work for them.' She smacked Kaede around the head, just enough to startle a yelp out of the girl. "So no more of this weepy shit."_

"_And that is how your honoured mother deals with children," Kidoumaru murmured to the sleepy Hisoka in his arms with a resigned sigh. "You are going to need _so_ much therapy when you're older."_


	14. Permafrost

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:**Permafrost

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

"You're not dead," Tayuya said stupidly and she had known it was a dumb thing to say even as the words had stumbled off of her tongue, but _seriously_ they were supposed to be dead. Yet here they were, right as rain, sitting in a tower in the middle of Sand's Hidden Village like two particularly strange princesses awaiting rescue.

It _was_ strange seeing them nine years on from that fateful day in the forests of Fire country because they'd gotten taller, developed muscle and breadth of shoulder. And they weren't wearing lipstick. (Prisoners probably didn't get much in the way of primping material.) Hell, they weren't even wearing clothes she recognised, just some sort of strange civilian garb that looked odd on bodies that were familiar, yet weren't.

"Clearly, you haven't gotten smarter with age," Sakon said sarcastically, but there was a sort of wonder in his voice (deeper now, but still with that musical edge) and his eyes kept darting between her face and Kidoumaru's.

"And you've just gotten uglier, faggot," she retorted automatically and then looked surprised when he smiled.

"You haven't changed, Tayuya," Ukon said, standing up now and, yes, _definitely_ taller than he used to be.

'_And definitely taller than me. Damn._'

"You'd be surprised," Kidoumaru said dryly, and then he was helping her towards a free chair so that he could clasp both of their forearms with a feverish sort of intensity that belied his easy smile. "You have no idea how good it is to see that you two morons are alive."

"Alive and kicking," Ukon drawled. He slapped Kidoumaru on the shoulder in that macho way guys did, the one that Tayuya rolled her eyes at, particularly when they forgot and did it to her and she had to hurt them back.

Though, right now, she kind of _wanted_ to be slapped on the back and felt fairly left out from this little reunion, stuck as she was on the chair with her broken ribs and the drugs still exiting her system. "_Hey_," she said loudly, distracting the three of them from their little pow-wow (all three of them grinning was freakier than she wanted to admit) so that they looked in her direction. "Am I the only one who wants to know why the fuck you guys are living in _Suna_?"

"I'm fairly curious as well," Kidoumaru added swiftly, sending Temari and Sasuke a hard glance that eloquently laid out just how pissed off he was over this having been kept a secret for so long.

Temari, at least, had the shame to look slightly abashed (though not overly so.) Sasuke just looked bored.

"Kankurou brought them in," Temari said.

"Alive, but not kicking all that much," Ukon commented and his morbid humour convinced Tayuya that these were the real deal, not just some extremely well-done henge.

"Indeed. We handed them over to the medical research department because of their unique traits my brother and Inuzuka Kiba had reported."

Kidoumaru's expression turned icy cold. "So you experimented on them."

"…yes."

"Oi, don't look like one of your spiders died," Sakon butted in. "It was kind of fun."

Tayuya looked at the pair of them critically. "…you two are fucking creepy, you know that right?"

"Says the girl who summons zombies." A beat. "You do still summon zombies, right?"

Nine years suddenly didn't seem all that long a time as Tayuya threw a pillow at Ukon. It may as well have been yesterday that they were sitting in the common room reserved for the higher-level soldiers in one of their better bases, bickering about who had the remote and fighting over food. Then she caught Temari and Sasuke watching and coloured up with irritation, pissed off at having been caught showing some sign of (violent) affection.

"What did they do to you?" she demanded, more to shift attention from her to them than from a need to know.

Frankly, she wasn't sure if she wanted to know.

Sakon shrugged. "Nothing too bad. Once they'd worked out that we could pretty much regenerate anything they did to us so long as we merged, the harsh stuff petered out."

"They knew they were onto something useful and didn't want to damage it," Ukon chimed in helpfully.

"Yeah. Apparently, their scientists had been messing around with stem cells, trying to cure cancer and all that." Sakon looked smug. "Our cells are better."

"And nothing rejects them." Ukon picked up the thread of the recount and Tayuya shook her head in wonder – they still talked in exactly the same way, finishing off each other's anecdotes with a fluidity that would have done actors on stage proud. "They use us for transplants mostly, since our organs just grow back so long as we can merge for long enough." He smirked, but the smile had a bite to it. "And now that we've proved co-operative, we even get anaesthetic."

"And nice quarters with only _two_ guards at the door, and they give us walks in the sunshine sometimes." Sakon still sounded irritatingly mocking.

Kidoumaru still didn't look happy. "You're still prisoners though."

Sakon's shoulders rose and fell again, and he looked remarkably indifferent. "Once we heard Orochimaru-sama was dead, we kind of stopped caring about anything else. They feed us, they house us…what are a few operations every year?"

"Hell, we're even allowed to wander around on our own now so long as we wear these." Each of the twins held up their dominant hand (right for Sakon, left for Ukon) and Tayuya saw the metal cuff fitted on each wrist. The metallic surface seemed to shift with seals. "For our chakra."

While Kidoumaru, ever the gadget-freak, examined Ukon's cuff, Tayuya just absorbed all of this new information as best as she could.

Sakon and Ukon were alive.

Sakon and Ukon were living in Suna.

Sakon and Ukon were living in Suna and almost seemed…_happy_.

This brought up an uncomfortable revelation in Tayuya. While her mind balked at the idea of the captivity the twins had lived in for the past nine years, she also had to admit that it wasn't all that different to when they'd been shinobi under Orochimaru-sama's rule. Except, back then, their shackles had been moulded out of fear instead of metal – they'd been loyal out of desperation and because they'd never known anything else, rather than any real suitability in their leader. They'd been violent, angry creatures who amused him and he hadn't been above setting them against each other. They'd been violated at his hands, physically and mentally, had been so broken in body and spirit that only the desire to serve had allowed them to cling onto life.

He'd sent them on a mission as expendable pawns so that he could get his hands on fucking Uchiha Sasuke.

And their existence in Oto's many bases hadn't been a pleasant one, locked as they often were in their rooms as children so that they didn't get in the way, fed only when there was enough food to go around, particularly in the early days when the nation was a new one.

With a sick sort of realisation, Tayuya had to wonder whether what Sakon and Ukon had dealt with at the hands of their Suna captors had been any worse than what Orochimaru had dealt them.

The thought felt like a betrayal and, even though she knew he was dead and gone, Tayuya almost feared his wrath at such a disloyal thought. Her flinch made her hate herself for such foolishness, but it did little to dispel it.

Tayuya had been a child when Orochimaru had died. Nine years down the line and he still haunted her – in a perverse way, one that counsellors around the world would have a field day with, she still longed for her Orochimaru-sama's approval while simultaneously wishing that she'd never met him, that she could go back to that day when he'd picked her up off the streets of Suna and stabbed him in his sadistic serpent's heart.

"—and it's not as if we need our chakra all that much anyway – Ukon and I can still meld while wearing them, so it doesn't hamper us at all." Sakon's voice brought her back to the present situation and if any of them noticed her looking pale and slightly wild around the eyes, no one commented.

"Interesting…" Kidoumaru mumbled, still examining the chakra constraint. "Fascinating design."

Ukon caught Tayuya watching his brother and Kidoumaru discuss the mechanics of the thing and wandered over, standing with his hands in his pockets as he looked down at her thoughtfully. She stared back, defiant and just as curious.

"Huh," he said finally, a smile chasing the words out. "You grew up."

His look was definitely appraising and Tayuya, out of instinct, retreated behind both her fringe and her nose. "What the fuck's that supposed to mean?" she asked irritably,

"You're not a girl anymore. Not that you were much of a girl back then anyway, but you look…older now."

Tayuya wasn't sure she liked the way this conversation was turning out. "No shit, fairy. It's only been, what, nearly a decade?" She snorted disdainfully and was then surprised when Ukon laughed, surprised enough to let it show on her face. The Sakon and Ukon she remembered had been touchy little buggers and the best ones to pick fights with since they were so easily provoked. Usually by the 'fairy' thing.

Ukon didn't look offended at all – instead, he just looked amused. "You'd be surprised how much you miss someone you thought you hated once they're taken away from you."

Tayuya eyed him suspiciously. "…if that was supposed to be flattering, it really wasn't."

"Who said it was supposed to be flattering?"

Tayuya caught Temari watching them and her default scowl immediately shuttered back up. "What?" she demanded. "Were you expecting weepy reunions and hugs all around? I'm not that much of a fucking pussy. You'd be better off expecting it from these two faggots."

("Charming," Ukon murmured to Sakon and Kidoumaru.)

Frankly, Tayuya didn't know how she felt about finding these two alive and well, if certainly different. What she did know was that she wasn't comfortable with the Sand-bitch and Uchiha-fucking-Sasuke watching. She drew herself up to her full (and not very impressive) height, then winced when her broken ribs protested.

"Geez," Kidoumaru said, eying her with something that was close enough to worry that she wanted to punch him for it (damn her short arms…) "We should really get you to a medic."

"I'm fine," she snapped, defensive once more. Weakness in front of enemies was a bad thing; weakness in front of teammates, even if you hadn't seen them in nine years, was worse.

"What happened?" Sakon looked to Kidoumaru for an explanation, but it was Temari who gave one.

"Tayuya-san and I had something of a disagreement." While being mild and completely smooth, her tone also brooked no arguments.

"Oh. _That_ kind of trouble," Ukon said in amusement. "Nice to know that you haven't completely reformed, Tayu."

The shortening of her name was what caught her. Way back when, Sakon and Ukon had been known to, when the Sound Four were getting on at least passably, call her that.

Now Kidoumaru was the only one.

The throwback to the past made the walls seem to close in on her as the day's occurrences crowded her, eager for attention. Sakon and Ukon, supposedly killed by Suna shinobi nine years ago, standing alive and well before her.

Killed.

Dead.

_Seiichi._

Something flashed through her mind, a lightning strike that illuminated all that had previously slipped into darkness with an eerie glow. '_Can't forget about me_,' the jolt of memory wheedled. '_Can't make me go away_.'

"Tayuya?" someone said, and the voice seemed to come from a long way away. She blinked and Kidoumaru's familiar rough-hewn features came into focus. He looked concerned and, in a direct response to that, she scowled.

"Get out of my face," she griped, trying to sound as if she didn't desperately need something to prop herself up on right about now. But she'd hang herself before that something was Kidoumaru again. She was done with being coddled today.

…she was just done with _today_.

"We should probably be going," she heard Kidoumaru say when another of those blank moments passed her by, the ones where she suspected her ribs were hurting more than she could actually feel them.

A medic-nin would have told her that she was in shock. Not that she'd have believed them.

"Will we be graced with your presence again?" Sakon was as sardonic as ever, dry as a bone in a desert, but he couldn't disguise the very real hope that lurked beneath the surface of his indifference.

Kidoumaru smiled and, for once, Tayuya couldn't find any trace of insincerity in the expression, no matter how hard she searched. "Next time, we'll bring our son."

It'd been a while since she'd seen Sakon and Ukon. It had been longer still since she'd seen them _speechless_.

Outside of the room ('_the cell_,' she reminded herself with an effort) everything turned that much more hazy, that much more distant. Her hold on her body was tremulous, as if she were a kite and only a thin string tied her to the ground (and she'd never really liked her body all that much anyway so the sense of detachment was a welcome one) but she was still aware of Kidoumaru fixing Temari and Sasuke with an angry, icy look.

"We returned whatever captives we'd taken," he said. He was mad, she realised blearily, madder than he'd been in a while and it was a _long_ while since nothing really seemed to piss Kidoumaru off. Ever. "It was insisted upon. One would have assumed that the same courtesy would have been extended towards us." The chilliness of his voice made her want to laugh, dizzily, because the fools had made him angry and that was never a smart thing to do. Kidoumaru got vicious when he was angry – he was just smarter about it than her. More calculated.

The bastards were gonna burn.

"We're going to the hospital now, but don't think that this is over." His words echoed in the corridors of her ears and then she was moving again and the world was whirling in a funny direction as the cracked cage of her ribs made it hard to breathe.

"…we just saw Sakon and Ukon," she said after a while, and it sounded foolish, even to her. She just couldn't conjure up the energy or the air to give two shits.

"Yeah."

Tayuya looked thoughtful even as she stumbled and Kidoumaru had to catch her again. She batted him away irritably ("I can walk without a fucking crutch!") but the dazed, contemplative look remained. "Knew they were too annoying to die."

Even with her funny view from below of his jaw she could still see his smile and she had to note, as a growing pressure mounted behind her temples, that he'd stopped smiling like that a while ago.

And why knowing that Sakon and Ukon were alive had brought it back.

oOo

Jiroubou looked stunned when they told him.

"_Alive_?" he echoed.

Tayuya managed to land a kick on his meaty kneecap even though was flat on her back. "That's what we said, shithead," she snapped, then looked irritably down to where one of the medics had his hands on her ribs. "Can't you hurry this up?"

"Not if you want them to heal right, Tayuya-san," the weedy guy said mildly. She huffed a few curses under her break, but flopped down and was at least somewhat pliant while the man did his job.

"Patience is a virtue," Kidoumaru said guilelessly as he bounced Hisoka up and down on his hip. He was a quiet child normally, but the stressful atmosphere of being in a strange, foreign place made him fret almost as much as the heat did and he clung to anything familiar.

Luckily, Kidoumaru had six arms to cling back with.

Wordlessly (and keeping her torso as still as she could) Tayuya gave him the finger. Kidoumaru just laughed and rested his chin on top of his son's very red head.

He'd never wanted to be a father. Like many raised in the shinobi lifestyle, he hadn't considered them an option. Besides, his people were too many countries away to count and who else would want to breed with a man with three times as many arms as them? His lack of a desire for children stemmed more from practicality than self-pity. What would he do with a child when he was on a mission, while Oto was at war?

Besides. Children were loud and, quite often, sticky. He could manage without.

Then the war had happened and so many had died (too many) that Oto was on the verge of dissolution. The breeding edict hadn't been of his own conception, but he had enforced it and when it had applied to Tayuya…well, he'd made himself useful.

It had all been out of duty initially, but what had shocked Kidoumaru (and he didn't shock easily) was how much he'd come to enjoy the feeling the warm little body supported in his arms and the knowledge that the little guy was his.

Much of what Kidoumaru had ever had in his life had been taken away from him.

No one could remove the ties of blood.

"Alive and healthy," he said, giving Jiroubou the civil answer that the larger man hadn't been able to get out of Tayuya. "All limbs present and accounted for."

"And it's definitely them?"

Kidoumaru allowed himself a small smile – he didn't blame Jiroubou for being sceptical. In their line of business people you thought were dead didn't just waltz out of the woodwork – suicide was preferable to being a hostage. "Their chakra hasn't changed."

"And it's not as if someone who didn't come from Oto would know how to make themselves reek of the fucking seal." Tayuya winced and the healer made a remonstrating noise. "You try staying still when it hurts like a son of a bitch," she snapped back, tetchy.

Kidoumaru made a point of meeting Jiroubou's gaze and holding it. "It was them," he said quietly. "No doubt about it."

Jiroubou must have been holding his breath unconsciously because he let it go with that promise and some of the tension went out of his broad shoulders. "Nine years…" he murmured, more than a little amazement lining his deep voice.

Kidoumaru felt a smile come forwards unannounced. "I know."

"There," the healer pronounced, giving Tayuya's ribs one last thoughtful press. "Nothing too active for a couple of weeks though, and you might find moving from standing to sitting or vice versa uncomfortable."

Tayuya rolled her eyes though the movement was half-hidden by red hair that was stiffened into hard spikes with dried blood. "I'll keep it in mind," she said, words heavily laced with a sarcasm that the medic seemed to ignore as he bowed to the three of them and left.

"Careful," Jiroubou warned when Tayuya started sitting up, which only provoked her to do it faster (and even if she winced at the end, Kidoumaru knew she'd rather piss Jiroubou off than maintain her own health any day.)

"Here." Hisoka had been making vague squirmy motions to be put down so Kidoumaru placed him on the ground, patting his shock of red hair with a free hand. "Why don't you show your mother what Naoko-san showed you how to use today?"

The little boy padded over to where Tayuya was sitting and, solemn as ever, presented her with a shuriken. Tiny it may have been, but Tayuya accepted it gravely and, while her pat on his head was gruff and lacking in overt affection, it made her son smile all the same.

"Nice to know someone got something useful out of today," she muttered, sounding pissed-off. But when the child clambered up onto the bed beside her and nestled against her side, she didn't push him away.

oOo

"Yo."

Temari had only taken three steps away from the Kazekage's tower when a shadow separated itself from the rest of the darkness cloaking the building and coalesced into the form of a man.

"…hey." Saying anything else required more energy than she had left.

She felt rather than saw Shikamaru fall into step with her. "Rough day?" he offered, words laced with an irony that made her curl her lip in a façade of a smile.

"The normal," she replied, equally insincere.

The sun had set hours ago, while she was still briefing her brothers and Baki on the events that had occurred out in the wastelands and now the glassy stars blinked down at her. The evening's chill wormed its way through the gaps in her clothing, made her flesh tense if not shiver.

Then Shikamaru's hand was on her shoulder and the dry warmth of his palm seeped down through the layers of cloth between them. She stopped and looked at him, half surprised, half irritated with his sudden decision to actually be forward for once.

"Are you okay?" His tone was carefully neutral.

Temari wanted to say yes, to brush him off so that she could go home and _sleep_, but Shikamaru was so damn…_unassuming_ that she couldn't get offended over his asking.

"She didn't kill me," came the weary reply.

"From what Sasuke says, she tried awfully hard."

"I can't blame her." Then the furrows in Temari's brow deepened, became canyons against the plain of her skin. "Actually, yes, yes I fucking can. She's a fool and she's wrong." The lines smoothed out again suddenly and her sigh was once again tired. "But she's a fool in a way that I'd probably be if I'd walked in her shoes." Temari smiled at that, but the expression was sour and self-mocking. "I'm too goddamn understanding sometimes."

Shikamaru snorted and she shot him an annoyed look to which he paid no heed at all. "Clearly. Because you're secretly so soft at heart."

Irritation prompted her to take a swipe at his spiky head and self-preservation made him duck away languidly, but it was enough to rouse her from the flatness she'd sunk into once the fight's adrenalin had leeched itself from her veins. "I hate you sometimes."

He caught her hand on the arc back to her, caught it and pressed his fingers against her palm and looked meaningfully down at her.

Her expression softened and, for a brief moment, she squeezed back. Then it was business as normal when she pulled her hand away. "Come on." The pace she set in the direction of her home was fast enough that Shikamaru was in danger of being left behind.

He'd get there though. Eventually. That was something she could count upon not to change.

oOo

"You're quiet tonight."

"You're bothersome tonight."

Sakon grinned at his brother's absent-minded shootdown. "Just tonight?"

Ukon's pale hair reflected the lamplight when it swung forwards, shading his face as he leant over his book. "Duly corrected: _always_."

Sakon watched him read for a while longer then propped his chin on one elegant hand. "You didn't answer me."

"You didn't ask a question," was the swift response.

Unworried by the relative curtness of Ukon's words, Sakon just continued to stare at him benignly. He knew how to push his older brother's buttons.

It was a gift inherent to all the younger siblings that were ever born.

Ukon pointedly ignored him for a few long minutes (he even went as far as to turn his first page in the last quarter of an hour) but the tick that developed over his left eye was indicative of the success of Sakon's technique. Finally, with an annoyed exhalation, he shut his book and glared at his younger brother. "I wasn't ready to see them," he snapped. "Happy now?"

"Quite." Sakon's look of sympathy clashed with his narrow features and angular eyes. "We knew they were out there."

"And how likely did you think it was that Suna was just going to let it slip that we were still around?" His acerbic tongue lashed like a whip. "It's not as if we expected to ever see them again."

The younger brother raised an eyebrow at Ukon's unusual slip into anything resembling self-pity or overt disquiet. "Shouldn't we be happy about this?" Ukon didn't answer and Sakon rolled his eyes. "You've just got your knickers in a twist because Tayuya's squirted out a sproglet."

It was amusing to watch expressions war for dominance on Ukon's face, disgust shouldering embarrassment and aggravation out of the way, only to be ambushed by the emotions it thought it had ousted. "As if."

"Kidoumaru must have had a fun time with that – putting your dick in Tayuya's reach seems too much like courting death to me."

"You're so crude."

"It's been said."

Ever the tactile pair, Sakon saw nothing wrong with moving to stand behind his brother so that he could loop a comforting arm around his slender neck. "They'll come back. Temari wouldn't have let on that they had us if she was just going to bar them from seeing us again."

Ukon automatically leant back against the familiar warmth of his brother's body – he didn't push to merge, but the action was enough to let Sakon know that he was feeling uneasy. Vulnerable. He heard his older brother sigh and then, quieter, "What if they don't like us anymore?"

"They didn't like us in the first place."

"You know what I mean." Ukon sounded exasperated. "They've built a life without us, _survived_ without us. They've got a life, they've got a village – they've even got a kid! What place is there for us with them?"

Sakon's response was to hold his brother more tightly. "They'll still want us," he said and resisted the urge to say it again to increase the chances of it being true.

oOo

"You done eating?" Tayuya asked her son.

"Nearly." Hisoka nodded soberly at her, chopsticks delving into the last of his rice.

"Finish up quickly," Kidoumaru interjected, his eyes on Tayuya. "I think your mother needs to go to bed."

"Fuck off, spider-freak. I'm fine."

Kidoumaru smirked – her claims of wellness would have been more convincing if they hadn't been broken up by a decided wince when her newly healed ribs complained about her movement. "Sure you are, honey."

The obvious taunt made her toss a plate at his head. Kidoumaru calmly caught it with one of his hands and placed it next to a smiling Hisoka. "Guess mommy's cranky, huh?" One of the redheads in the room giggled; the other scowled. It wouldn't have been difficult to predict which one would have which response.

"I'll fucking show you cranky, asswipe."

Kidoumaru's excellent hearing picked up her muttered words and he leered at her in jest. "That a promise?" The look she sent him in response was disgusted and held a promise of certain damage for his body.

And Kidoumaru _liked_ his body.

He quickly turned to Hisoka who was demonstrating his usual unshakeable sobriety in the face of his mother's foul mouth. "Hey, small stuff, wanna go get washed up?"

"'kay."

As it usually did when Hisoka's sentences consisted of only one or two words, Kidoumaru wasted a few seconds wondering just how Tayuya (who had a propensity for being crude and volatile) and himself (who talked far too much) had produced such a sweet, quiet child.

Or how the little boy seemed immune to picking up the more colourful parts of his mother's vocabulary.

Hisoka's small (and slightly sticky) hand was firmly in one of his when Kidoumaru opened the door, but the tearful face that greeted him on the other side of the threshold made him stop.

"Uh, Tayu?"

"What?"

"Someone to see you."

"Fucking _hell_. What does a person need to do to get a few hours of-" Her tirade faltered when she saw the tears rolling down Kaede's cheeks. "-peace…Kaede, what the hell?"

The genin's face quivered and then crumpled, deep feeling making it fold in on itself. "Tayuya-sensei…"

Then Tayuya had herself an armful of sobbing girl-child and all Kidoumaru could do was return her confused look. Turning to him for help with a sobbing genin who was both young and female was pointless.

There was a reason he didn't have a genin team. Or a girlfriend.

"…Oi, brat, what's wrong?"

Kidoumaru's mouth twitched a little in wry bitterness. What hadn't been wrong with today? His mind involuntarily flickered to the memory of Seiichi's pale frame lying on the shiny, black marble slab in the morgue where they'd found him after having seen Sakon and Ukon. The boy hadn't been his own student but, perhaps more than with Tayuya and Jiroubou, Kidoumaru had found that the bond of Otonin to Otonin was enough for him to deem a person important. So the man would have mourned Seiichi's death even if he hadn't been fond of the genin for his own merits, however exhausting they had often proven to be.

Right now, his grief had been placed in cold storage within the confines of his mind. He couldn't afford the dulling affect mourning would place on him and he forced the sombre image out of his immediate consciousness.

Not that the sight of Tayuya scowling down at the inconsolable Kaede was any easier to cope with, particularly because the scowl wasn't so much angry as lost. Helpless. His fiery teammate was faced with a misery that she felt as well, but couldn't understand, and she certainly didn't know how to make her student's tears go away.

"Come on, lad," he said quietly to Hisoka. "Your mother and Kaede-chan need some time to talk."

The look Tayuya flashed him was almost scared and it screamed 'don't leave me to face this on my own' but he ignored it.

This was something that she needed to dive in the deep end with and it was sink or swim.

oOo

The bathing facilities in Suna were fairly Spartan, but this could be forgiven given their arid environment. This meant that bathing time went quickly and once both Kidoumaru and Hisoka were appropriately well-scrubbed, less than fifteen minutes had elapsed since they'd left Tayuya and her blonde student alone together.

Standing outside the door to Tayuya's suite, Kidoumaru hesitated about going in and disturbing the student-teacher pair, but Hisoka had let out three hefty yawns in the past five minutes and looked ready to fall asleep on his feet if he didn't find himself in a bed soon. The Otonin took a breath and pushed the door open.

He'd never seen Tayuya look so relieved before. He also saw the open bottle of what looked suspiciously like scotch on the low table near where the two females were sitting and immediately raised an eloquent eyebrow at her.

"It was for me, not her," Tayuya snapped, interpreting his look. "Geez, how fucking irresponsible do you think I am?"

If laughing hadn't been completely inappropriate, Kidoumaru would have done so. Hysterically. 'Tayuya' and 'responsible' were rarely found together in the same paragraph, let alone sentence.

Her shirt displayed obvious tearstains and more of the same disappeared into Kaede's collar. The girl wasn't holding onto Tayuya anymore though her pre-adolescent frame leant towards the older woman like a flower towards the sun.

"Is it Seiichi?" he asked Tayuya in a low undertone. He'd pitched his voice quietly enough that Kaede probably wouldn't have heard it even if she hadn't still been crying quietly in the exhausted, hiccupping manner of someone who'd been doing so for far too long.

"I don't know and she won't fucking tell me. Every time I ask she just starts crying again!"

Kidoumaru wanted to wince. At his side, Hisoka's balance wavered and he absently hoisted his son up onto one hip.

"Kaede-chan?" She looked up at him through her blunt fringe and tear-bedecked eyelashes. "This may help. Trust me on this one, okay?"

He didn't wait for an answer before he touched two fingers to her forehead and concentrated on matching her chakra rhythms to his own.

"What did you do?" Tayuya asked him suspiciously once he took his fingers away from where Kaede's supposed third eye would have been and her mind's chakra centre actually was.

"Blocked a few neurotransmitters from being released in her synapses. She should be calmer – not by much, probably, because it's a shaky technique and she'd a pretty emotional girl most of the time so the dampening effect is lessened, but you might actually be able to get her to talk now."

Tayuya didn't look as if she approved, but she did hunker down in front of the girl, put her grim face on a level with Kaede's tearstained one. "Brat. Talk to me."

Kaede looked as if she had difficult focusing on her for a few seconds, then her vision cleared. Her full lower lip trembled and a round drop of salt water glistened at the corner of her left eye, stubbornly refusing to go the way of so many of its brethren and fall. "Seiichi-kun's dead, Tayuya-sensei," she said in a broken little voice.

Tayuya's face, if possible, turned even grimmer. "I know." With the shadows darkening her face and lines that he hadn't known existed springing into existence around her eyes and mouth Kidoumaru suddenly knew what she'd look like when she was ninety. Not that either of them would reach that old an age.

"He's dead." Now that stubborn tear finally fell and more followed, streaming down the girl's round cheeks. "And it all happened so fast – the water, the lightning…he…when the…I didn't know that _anyone_ could do that."

Tayuya's face still looked too bleakly old for her age. She said nothing.

"He didn't even stand a _chance_, Tayuya-sensei. There was nothing he could have done!" Kaede struggled with her own words, emotion warring with coherency. It took her a few moments to find calm (or some semblance of it) enough to speak again. "And I'm so sad that he's gone—Dai's _heartbroken_—and his parents, what are we going to say to them? But…" Here, her breath caught in her throat and her face crumpled again, tears coming in a hot, silent flood. "But I'm an awful person because I _should_ be sad that he's d-d-dead, but all I can think about is how scared I am about my match tomorrow." Kidoumaru could see his jutsu losing ground to her emotions with every second that passed, could see the hysteria rising within her tomorrow as a painful sob fought its way out of her tiny ribcage. "I don't want to die, Tayuya-sensei, I don't. And I knew that it was a risk when we entered the exams, but me and Dai-kun and S-Seiichi-kun, I thought it couldn't happen to us and…and…"

Kidoumaru's heart, the one he'd thought of as jaded and bitter and far too attuned to death and all the grief it bought with it, twisted in his breast when she broke down again. He made to reach out towards her, suddenly needing to shut the receptors on the girl's post-synaptic membranes down again, but then Tayuya was in his way and he pulled back, startled.

Tayuya looked down at the girl with her hands on her hips and a harsh expression in her eyes.

"Idiot," she said and Kidoumaru's head snapped around towards her, startled as he was by her seeming lack of empathy. It was his turn to be ignored. "You make it sound as if you're the first person to ever be scared before."

"Tayuya…" She didn't even look at him while her hand gestured for him to _shut the fuck up_.

"Hayasaki Kaede, it's normal to not want to die. _Fucking_ normal. And all that means is that you have to take that fear and use it so that you fight all the harder. When you're pissed off or scared shitless, those are the times when you should be fighting at your best because you _want_ something. You should want _not to die_ more than anything else and that means that nothing else should matter. Nothing else should hold you back. Seiichi…" It was only now that Tayuya seemed to take a breath. "Seiichi was unlucky. Chance fucked him over and it can do the same to you. But the point is to know that, when you do die, you fought like a son of a bitch to prevent it."

…Kidoumaru must have been more worn out from today than he'd realised because she was actually making sense. Twisted, awful, _painful_ sense, but things concerning Tayuya were never pretty or nice. They were gritty and harsh, but their truth often struck you to your core, however bad they then made you feel. And he wasn't alone because Kaede had stopped crying, whether from shock or understanding.

Tayuya tossed her hair back over her shoulder and it shone like fresh blood in the light. In that one moment, she seemed unbreakable and untouchable. Kidoumaru felt the irrational urge to hold his breath. Then the moment passed and she was herself again, scruffy and irritable and imperfect again.

"Weak people are pussies because they let fear order them around. People are only strong when they take fear and make it fucking work for them.' She smacked Kaede around the head, just enough to startle a yelp out of the girl. "So no more of this weepy shit."

"And that is how your honoured mother deals with children," Kidoumaru murmured to the sleepy Hisoka in his arms with a resigned sigh. "You are going to need _so_ much therapy when you're older."

oOo

"Was she alright when you left her?"

"Out like a light as soon as her head touched the bloody pillow." Tayuya scraped her hair out of her face irritably – the sun in Suna seemed to have promoted a frenetic burst of growth in the follicles and it was now long enough loose to get on her nerves. "Hisoka?"

"The same. I put him in your bed." She bristled at the presumption and he smiled down at her. "I thought you'd want the company tonight."

She snorted – both at the concept of needing company and the assumption that she wanted to sleep. "You're so full of shit sometimes."

She half-recognised the sadness in his eyes, but she was in not mental state to even attempt analysing it so it ended up ignored. It was more difficult to do the same when he touched her shoulder. Even the light weight of his hand was uncomfortable – in the mood she was in her skin prickled and rebelled against contact. "It's been a long day. You should sleep."

She could see it in his face, that odd need of his to offer some sort of verbal assurance that everything would be okay. She didn't _want_ him to tell her that everything would be okay. So she retreated into hostility, the only escape she knew.

"Don't treat me like a kid," she snapped at him. "It's been years since you had any say in what I do, so don't fucking regress now."

She'd hurt him. It was written in his stance, in the way the complicated structure of his shoulders stiffened. And part of her despised the fact that she had the capacity to hurt him because he'd let her get in too deep.

Tayuya felt invisible bars closing in on her and claustrophobia wanted to beat them back. Too many people expected far too much of her.

She couldn't stay inside any longer.

"I'm going out." She jerked her chin towards the shadowy room where Hisoka was sleeping. "Watch him."

She didn't give him time to protest as she drew energy in on herself, thought of a wide, open space and jumped.

oOo

Walls trapped heat so the sudden chill of the desert at night compared to the relative warmth of inside made Tayuya shiver. Her sleeping attire, consisting of thin, loose pants, a ratty top and a light robe offered little protection against the cold and she wrapped her arms around her torso to warm herself up.

The air around her occupied a large volume, her arms an exponentially smaller one – I'll allow you to come to your own conclusions about the success of this attempt.

She looked out over the village hidden in the sand without really seeing it, her eyes blank and empty.

Cold air moved. It smelled of dust and thirst, and moved her hair where it fell around her shoulders. She'd picked the highest point in Suna to teleport to so it wasn't surprising that there was nothing to obstruct the chilling winds, but the press of an empty sky above her was comforting in a numbing sort of way.

Tayuya was alone in a way that she hadn't been for a very long time and the solitude calmed the feral part of her that wanted to dive into a wilderness without other people in it and never come out again.

Solitude, however, could never last.

At first, it had just been her on this high, lonely rooftop.

Then, between one breath and the next, it was her, a Konoha shinobi and the pale, quicksilver wraith that was his dog in the moonlight.

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

Monster chapter – just over seven thousand words – but I'm happy with the way it went. My chapters seem to fall into two categories: action chapters and exploration chapters. This is definitely one of the latter kind. Though things seem to have gone from nothing happening to everything happening at once. Whew.

Not much to say, really. I hope the chapter speaks for itself. Feel free to leave any comments, queries or critiques in a review (particularly the latter since I often get so caught up in the contents of one chapter that I forget about tiny, important details such as continuity.)

Note: I'm rather amused that I'm typing this while soaring over the Atlantic Ocean. Everyone else is sleeping and I'm the only fool awake. But God bless laptops and nine-hour flights in which a lazy lass can catch up with her writing.

My thanks to **TaintedMoonlight, rax99, claymade** (who really made me think), **Monoshiri** (whose work '**Warmongers**' you should definitely check out for some chibi Sound Four fun!) **Sycogerl64** (I'm so glad one of my favourite reviewers has resurfaced!) and **Muria** for their kind, kind reviews and never once nagging me for being slow to write.

Edit: ff dot net seems to be refusing to allow me to underline anything, even editing it in the docs section. How irritating...

**In Next Week's Episode:**

"_I didn't want company." By now, she knew the presence of his chakra and didn't need to look behind her to confirm his identity._

"'_Fraid you don't have a choice," Kiba replied, voice gruff. "It's a twenty-four seven job escorting you."_


	15. A Moment's Monument

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** A Moment's Monument

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

"I didn't want company." By now, she knew the presence of his chakra and didn't need to look behind her to confirm his identity.

"'Fraid you don't have a choice," Kiba replied, voice gruff. "It's a twenty-four seven job escorting you." She heard him move up behind her until an arm's length separated them. Refused to look at him. Continued to stare out into the dark expanse that was the desert beyond the village walls.

There was little to see. While it was a clear night, the moon didn't cast much light and the stars were mere glassy pinpricks against the vastness of the sky. The desert stretched out before them, indeterminate in breadth and length.

The vastness dwarfed her.

And Tayuya disliked feeling small.

"Hey, I'm…" The Inuzuka's voice petered out and she watched him rub at the back of his neck awkwardly out of the corner of her eye. Other than the movement of dark irises in his direction, she gave no indication that she was even aware of his presence. He tried again. "I'm sorry…about the kid. Seiichi."

She flinched. And couldn't help it. And hated not being able to help it.

Maybe he'd noticed, she thought, maybe he hadn't. She wouldn't have put it past him to miss out on something like that, or to see it and not know how to comment on its passing.

He carried on. "He was a good kid."

"You didn't know him." The words snapped out like a whip she hadn't commanded her tongue to use. Now that her façade was broken she turned heated eyes on him. He looked a little shocked and that only fuelled the sudden fire that burned in her belly and breast. "Don't talk about him as if you cared."

"I-."

"Did you ever lead a team?" The question was an accusation. "Did you ever have kids who expected you to teach them how to not end up as shit for crows to eat?"

"No, but-."

"Don't talk about him then."

"You never give an inch, do you?"

Tayuya's head snapped in his direction as she was startled out of her sullen dismissal of him. Her eyes collided with ones that were filled with a surprising amount of anger and their gazes smashed together with all the momentum of speeding vehicles. Kiba's hands were shoved in his pockets, his shoulders hunched in awkward defiance. "What the fuck is it supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what it sounded like," he snapped back. _Snapped_. As if the bastard had any right to be snapping at her like she'd done something wrong. "The world's moved on, but you're still stuck right back at the start. You act as if you're the only one who's ever been hurt, the only one who has any right to _still_ be angry.

"Okay. You lost. Now get the fuck over it instead of constantly moaning about how life dealt you a hard hand."

"I do _not_ constantly-."

"Yes, you do." Tayuya gaped at him, unused to being interrupted when she was working up to full flow. Kiba just glared back, unrepentant. "Maybe it's not moaning, but you seem so damn…_angry_ all of the time. At us."

That was enough to pierce whatever fragile barrier of surprise had been keeping her anger from spilling out of her mouth. "And why the hell shouldn't I be?" She hated the look in his eyes, the one juxtaposed between anger, mockery and disgust. She wanted to rip it off of his face. "It's all so easy for you cunts to sit up there on your high horse and preach forgiveness at me – you fucking _won_."

"_I. Did. Not. Win._"

Once again, Kiba managed to surprise her into silence and the sheer novelty of anyone being able to do that kept her speechless, at least while she digested the look of fury she suddenly found herself facing.

Something beat against Tayuya's chest, wings within her ribcage startled into motion because of the intensity of that look, a physical denial of a fact she did not yet know.

"My side won, but I didn't win. I don't think any of us did. Everyone knows someone who died." The young man suddenly looked old, much older than he should have and some trick of the moonlight made his eyes look darker than they did in the day. "At the first big skirmish on the border, Chouji's old man died on his way to the medics. Then Kurenai-sensei's brother got taken out in River country."

She didn't want to hear this. She really didn't. Tayuya felt the childish urge to place her hands over her ears and the not so childish urge to hurl a curse in his face and escape so that she wouldn't have to watch what wanted to unfurl before her.

Kiba looked at her and his eyes showed an impossible blend of sadness and anger. "And on the day before your side surrendered, a shinobi called Suigetsu – do you know him? – killed my mother." The bleakness in his voice, that sense of loss, suddenly evaporated, boiled away by the anger that encompassed his next words. "So I was angry for a while. And then I was sad. And then I moved on. That's what grieving is all about."

Tayuya felt as if she was being lectured and that single thought was enough to help her find the will to be hateful again. "That's easy for you to say." She was repeating herself by parroting the indignant statements that had simmered in her breast and brain since their defeat nine years ago, but found them unexpectedly empty in the face of the concept that, yes, victory may not have been everything. She didn't want to know this, didn't want to lose the edge her anger against them gave her.

Tayuya didn't know how to be sympathetic, so the wavering sensation that plagued her was unknown and alien, but she resented the weakness it implied in herself.

"You're a fool if you think so." He made a move to touch her face and she batted him away, too fraught to even pretend to be gentle, but he grabbed her wrist and, try as she might, she couldn't escape his grip. Kiba moved his face closer to hers, eyes angry and sad all at once. "Don't," he said. She tugged at the hold he had on her and his fingers clenched hard enough to make the delicate bones there grind against each other. "Don't," he said again. "The point is, sometimes I feel like I _should_ hate all of you. But I'm a shinobi and that means accepting that people die – it's in the nature of what we do. So I'm man enough to miss her and mourn her death, but I'm probably man enough to not hate you as well, and I'm _definitely_ man enough to like you."

It was at that point that the heat in his eyes bled through a heat of a completely different kind, lust mingling with anger, mingling with sorrow, and the blend was dizzying in its confusion.

Kiba held her wrist in one hand and touched her face carefully with another so that his calluses caught on her skin. "I'm sorry that Seiichi died," he said simply. "And I'm sorry that your world was turned upside down when ours was. But, Tayuya, you need to grow up. Grow past this. Take it from someone who knows."

oOo

He'd known that, as he'd spoken, a rather unintended but still very condescending spiel had spewed forth. One he stood by whole-heartedly, but that could have certainly been phrased better.

Even if he thought her anger was the anger of a child, he could have _definitely_ phrased it better.

Rage swam in the depths of her eyes and he braced himself for a blow.

She kissed him instead.

Granted, it was a kiss that came pretty damn close to _being_ a blow, what with how her mouth slammed into his and the sudden taste of blood from where she'd cut her lips on his fangs, but it was still unexpected. _Gloriously_ unexpected.

A small part of Kiba pointed out that she was vulnerable and dangerous and, oh, _an Otonin_, but the larger part of him, as well as the part of him that did most of his thinking when he was around pretty girls pointed out that she was hot and a damn aggressive kisser.

He was an Inuzuka. Aggressive was good.

With a moan that signalled the release of several day's worth of repressed frustration, he looped his arm around a surprisingly tiny waist and yanked her against him. He didn't even try to be gentle because none of this, _none_ of this was soft or gentle or giving. Her body wasn't pliant against his and her fingers didn't flutter over his skin. Instead, her wiry, compact frame pushed against him – demanding and insistent – while fingers more used to handling cold metal tangled themselves in the strands of his hair and _pulled_.

The near-pain sensation just this side of feeling good made him shiver, made him use his height to his advantage so that he could tip her head back far enough that her throat stretched out long and far. One hand cradled the back of her skull while the other dug into the hollow between hip and thigh. She made an angry noise at that and pulled at his hair again.

His response was to push her back against the wall of the stairwell, the little hut that housed the stairs which would take them back down to the rest of the sleeping village.

Her spine hit the red stone hard, but Tayuya didn't flinch, and his hand had stopped the back of her head slamming too hard against the barrier. The addition of a hard, unyielding surface made things interesting because, when he forced himself closer to her, there was nowhere else for her to go. She was small enough that her hips fell about mid-thigh on him, but when she lifted up onto the balls of her feet to more easily feed at his mouth he'd have seen stars if his eyes had been open. The friction – rough, unrelenting friction – was enough to set his heart to racing, used as it was to all manner of exertion.

Their teeth clicked together painfully in what seemed like mutual enthusiasm and a grumble of irritation came from the direction of Tayuya's throat. She pulled back to glare at him. With her bloody hair tumbling into those intense eyes and her chest heaving like that (maybe from passion, maybe from anger) Kiba took a moment to stare like a dieter faced with the window of a cake shop. She killed the moment though when she tossed her fringe out of her face and licked her lips, saying, "You're not good at this, are you?" in an accusing manner

Kiba growled and nipped her jaw none too gently. "Oh yeah?" he responded, competition adding warmth to the already heated situation, and then he was kissing her hard enough that she didn't have enough time or breath to answer. The blunt pressure of her fingers digging into his shoulder answered his challenge.

The kiss went on for a long time, long enough that it was difficult to tell where he ended and Tayuya began. His thoughts had been stripped of their coherency by lust and it wasn't until he found himself fumbling at the slits of her tunic and running fingers up the tempting lines of those skin-tight leggings she wore that it even occurred to him that this might not be at all appropriate. Or kind.

He pulled away from a mouth he could have very happily lost himself in and tried not to be lured back in by the needy, fierce look he was punished with, even if she did look all ruffled and tousled and inviting in an angry sort of way. "What?" she snapped, intimacy obviously not sweetening her temper.

"We can't do this. Not right now." He grimaced because, if the way it strained against his suddenly too constraining trousers was anything to go by, his cock hated him for saying that. But it was true – if they carried on for any longer, Kiba didn't have the self-control not to take her up against the very wall they were standing at now. And while a part of him was very, very, _very_ vehemently in favour of that idea, the knowledge that Tayuya wasn't all there had snuck up on him and refused to leave.

Damn.

Her face was losing whatever desire he'd evoked in her and he knew that if he allowed reason to swim back into those hostile eyes of hers, then she'd run and he'd never be able to get her back to this place. But still he hesitated, not knowing what to say, and he hesitated too long because her features locked down once more, an imaginary slam of an imaginary prison door accompanying the action.

Tayuya shrugged out of his grasp and swiftly sidestepped his attempt to grab her wrist, her shoulder, _anything_. Heat was rising in her eyes again, but this had nothing to do with passion and the tense, angry set of her shoulders only reminded him of the lustful pressure it replaced.

"I just…want to do what's right by you," Kiba said, even as his body ached because of the absence of hers. And though he had the reputation for being good with women (better than icemen like Neji, or layabouts like Shikamaru at least) he could sense the hole he was digging for himself with every word that spilled from his lips. "You've had a rough day, rougher than anyone should have to go through – you don't _want_ to do this now. Not like this."

The way that Tayuya's compact frame stiffened as if an electric current had just sparked through it was the first clue that he had cocked up spectacularly, and there was no way of calling words back once they'd been spoken. She'd been turning away from him, sidling towards the door like a cornered wild animal eager to escape yet loath to turn its back on its hunter, but now she faced him and that anger was back in full force.

"You know what I hate?"

Kiba had enough sense to know that this was _probably_ rhetorical and kept his damn mouth shut.

"Guys like you." 'You' was spat with a vehemence that Kiba wasn't quite sure he deserved, but he remained quiet. He couldn't quite formulate an expression that was neutral, but he did his best, looking at her with a seriousness he didn't apply to many things. She didn't seem to notice. Or care. "You take it upon yourselves to decide what we 'want'." Tayuya jerked her head in disgust, eyes deep with dripping disdain. "Are you in my head? Are you _me_? No." She was walking away now, stride swift in her self-righteous fury, and it was more of a stomp that lacked her fierce grace of the moments before than anything else. "Then you don't get to tell me what I want."

The door was open, her hand on the catch, and she was glaring at him with the moon painting shadows around her eyes and mouth, but her ire was clear enough as she delivered her parting shot. "You're a bloody presumptuous git. _Fuck. You._"

Then she was gone and the echoes of her footsteps within the stairwell gradually faded until the desert night was quiet once more.

Kiba didn't move for a while, just breathing as he tried to figure out how the world had managed to take a sudden turn for the worst. Then – savagely – he kicked the wall. And again.

The stucco should have been comfortingly solid at his back as he slid down to pool his long legs on the ground before him, but his veins still had too much frustration swimming in them.

Inuzuka Kiba stared at the starry sky above the seemingly endless desert and half wished that he had one of the cigarettes that Shikamaru was always smoking.

oOo

"Tayuya. Why haven't you-? Do you realise what time it is?"

"Shut up, fatass."

"But it's so late - weren't you supposed to-?"

"_Shut. Up._"

"…Jiroubou-sensei, why did Tayuya-san look so scary?"

"I wish I knew, Takumi."

oOo

"Oi, Kiba. What time do you call this? You were supposed to meet me for breakfast an hour ago. I'm going to be late for my meeting now!"

"…"

"…wow. You look like shit."

"Naruto?"

"Yeah?"

"I know you're my Hokage and anything, so this is meant in the most respectful way possible, but can you just piss off right now?"

"Sheesh. Some people are just grouchy in the morning. Remind you of anyone, Sasuke?"

"Feh."

oOo

Gaara, for whom the normal range of human emotion had once been alien and unfathomable, had become remarkably adept at reading people. To his left, Naruto was a restless ball of energy only prevented from fidgeting too much by the gimlet green eyes of his chief medic. To his right, Temari radiated tension – it was written in the slight clench of her jaw and the ramrod straight line of her back because his sister fell back on the noble's etiquette beaten into her as a child when she was stressed. However, both of them were people he was familiar with, ones he'd had time with in which to learn their mannerisms and physical traits.

He didn't have the luxury with the brown-skinned man sitting before them and, as a result, Kidoumaru of Oto was something of a mystery.

Naruto spoke first and the tone of his voice said that he wasn't even trying to be diplomatic. "Okay, you've got your meeting. So talk."

It was true that the spokesperson for Sound had been quite determined to get this chance to speak, but his motives were a mystery to Gaara.

So when Kidoumaru stood up slowly and then, with as much formality as was humanly possible, _bowed_, the Kazekage was actually vaguely surprised.

"On behalf of my teammate, I ask for your forgiveness," Kidoumaru said, face turned down towards the floor. "And I beg of you that you be understanding in your assessment of just why she acted the way she did, and that you do not hold it against my village."

As well as noting that the six-armed man maintained his humble position long after it must have started to hurt his back, Gaara took the time to judge the reactions of the others in the room with him. Naruto looked almost bemused, thought the gut sense of pity that came from his inherently good nature warred to come out in spite of his distrust. Sakura seemed to be doing her best not to look sympathetic, unlike Gaara's sister who, if he was reading her correctly, was fighting the urge to purse her lips suspiciously.

But, in the end, it was Sasuke who spoke.

"Oh, get up, Kidoumaru," he said irritably. "We're not about to execute her for her usual flouting of general human courtesy."

"Is that what we're calling trying to kill me these days?" Temari murmured, obviously having taken Sasuke's informal approach as an excuse to do the same.

Sasuke carried on as if she hadn't spoken. "It may have been a bad choice of yours to bring a troublesome woman like her along, but you look ridiculous grovelling like that." When Kidoumaru remained in his bow, the Uchiha started to look seriously pissed off. "I remember what she's like. We're not going to take her being a bitch as a hostile attack on Sand and Leaf, so get the hell up."

Kidoumaru straightened up finally, looking wry. "Sasuke-sama knows us well."

"Don't link me to you cretins." Sasuke curled his lip in distaste. He turned around and walked back to his usual spot behind Naruto's chair, pulling his ANBU mask down over his face once more so that he could hide in plain sight again. "I'm done talking now."

"Thanks for the warning," Sakura commented dryly. She then raised a pointed eyebrow at Naruto.

Gaara smiled inwardly – the blond may have been the one nominally in charge, but his female teammate was as much a shadow ruler in her role as advisor as Sasuke was. And her methods of prompting Naruto always amused the stoic Kazekage.

"Sasuke's right," Naruto said with a grumble in his voice at having to admit that ( and even behind his mask, the Uchiha managed to look smug.) "We're not chucking you and yours out of the village, just because your woman went all crazy and homicidal, but answer me this." He fixed Kidoumaru with as serious a look as the energetic young man was capable of in a situation that didn't involve close brushes with death. "If we're going to continue seeing a lot of you, is she going to be a danger? From what Sasuke and Temari-san have reported, she's got a hell of a grudge against the folks from Suna."

"An unreasonable one." Everyone turned to look at Temari who lifted her chin and stared down the blade of her nose at them. "Oto betrayed us first. She seems to have forgotten that."

"Sister," Gaara said and he deliberately added a warning tone to his usual impassive voice.

"It's fine, Kazekage-sama." Kidoumaru seemed to be doing his best to sound pleasant, neutral, but there was an underlying current of anger beneath his tact.

No, not anger. Resentment, maybe, or grief. Gaara mused that over even as he watched the enigma of a man lay his words out carefully.

"Temari-san is right in many ways. It's true that Orochimaru-sama did make the first move against your village by killing your father and taking his place, that I do not deny." Here, Kidoumaru turned a level stare at the leaders of two of the most powerful villages in the area, and it was an intense one at that. "But you need to understand how little we were told in those days. You need to understand that she – we all – wanted to please Orochimaru-sama more than anything else in the world. Anything else…it just didn't matter. The _details_ didn't matter. So she's angry, yes, and for the wrong reasons, but she _needs_ someone to be angry at." He passed a hand through his wiry hair in a rare physical expression of his ire. "If it gets her through the day, she can fucking well believe that you sacrifice babies to summon demons."

A few moments of tense silence passed.

"…I'd really rather she didn't," Gaara said in the end, perfectly deadpan. "It's bad for our reputation."

Sakura in particular looked shocked by his calm flippancy but, as Gaara had planned, that unhappy quiet was broken by Kidoumaru's laughter.

"I'll talk to her," he promised. "She's not the easiest person around to control, but she's a large part of why Oto pulled through our hard times. Just too damn stubborn to give up." His expression sobered up a little – odd in a man Gaara had observed to look nearly permanently amused by _something_. "Yesterday's…unfortunate incidents were probably an anomaly. She took losing one of her genin hard."

Sakura's sympathy finally overcame her sensibilities. "Anyone would."

No one argued.

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

…well, I'm aware that this took a while to come out. Part of me blames those little, tiny things called exams. The rest of me, however, blames Tayuya. Originally, this chapter was meant to go in a different direction, one that suited me as a storyteller. But what would make for a good story flow just didn't fly with our Tayuya because she's too damn stubborn to comply with anyone, including me OR Kiba.

And, yes, I am officially the queen of crack pairings. This evolved in a Naruto roleplay once and I've been hooked ever since.

…man, I miss roleplaying. Ah, if only I had more time and decent people to waste it with.

Anyway, thank you for all your kind reviews once more – the ones for chapter fourteen were particularly inspiring. So my thanks to **TaintedMoonlight** (who is patient with slow authors like myself!), **Racheakt** (who seems to be reading a lot of my stuff right now, for which I am thankful), **claymade** (who has been rubbing his hands for far too long now because I'm slow), **rax99**, **Muria**, **Inarae** (who really seems to get my Kiba!), **Sycogerl64** (my Neji goddess) and **Kara**. I have to mention them here because my account has, for the longest time, not been letting me reply to reviews. Annoying, I know.

Secondhand Faith is finally drawing to an end, I think. Probably in the next two or three chapters. However, there will be a sequel – Secondhand Faith, while a story in itself, is more about laying down the groundwork for what will come later.

See you next chapter!

**In Next Week's Episode:**

_'She wore her memories like clothes, like armour.'_


	16. Advice of Amateurs

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** The Advice of Amateurs

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

The problem with running with Lee, who was so much faster than her, was that Tenten often found herself quite literally eating his dust. Or, seeing as they were in Suna, his sand.

Tenten ran her tongue over her teeth and felt the grit stuck between them. This made her feel positively attractive, so she pulled a face and made her legs pump faster to catch up with Lee.

She really wasn't sure at what point it had become part of her daily routine to go with Lee on his morning runs, but, somehow, she had come to enjoy the time they spent together when the day was fresh and new and unsullied.

Granted, this particular day wasn't as fresh and new as others may have been (someone had dismantled her alarm clock, and she suspected Ino) but it was warm without being too hot yet and her muscles ached with the pleasant sense of just the right amount of exertion.

When Lee turned to glance at her over his shoulder, his smile was brilliant in the mid-morning sun, and Tenten had to grin back. He may have been as energetic and enthusiastic as an eager yet not very well-trained puppy, but he was still the best friend a girl could have if he was able to smile at her when she was as sweaty and sandy as she was right now.

And she hadn't even showered this morning.

"Last lap?" he proposed. "I am supposed to be meeting Neji soon."

"Sure." As usual, he sounded far less out of breath than she was after twenty circuits of the village, but it didn't stop her from looking at him slyly out of the corner of her eye. "Race you."

She didn't feel ashamed of spurting off after that without waiting for him to agree – even with that headstart, it was still a given that he would win. Lee was kind enough not to reach where they'd started from too much earlier than she did, but her defeat remained obvious.

"You're a freak," she told him without malice. She was hot and icky, with sweat-soaked hair clinging to the back of her neck and the black of her eye patch contrasting nastily with her flushed skin. He looked pleasantly energised.

Lee laughed and plucked a stray hairpin from where it was teetering above her temple. He offered it to her with a flourish. "You're getting faster."

"Marginally."

"I can write you up a training programme?"

"Nah. If you want to make me feel better, we can practice with projectiles when we get home. At least I can beat you at that."

Lee winked at her and slipped into his copyrighted Nice Guy pose with the ease of years and years of practice. "That, Tenten, is because you are the pinnacle of prowess when it comes to weapons! All should aim to be like you, for you are an example to us all! You are a goddess of pointy things that inflict pain!"

"Now that's a goddess I can see convincing me to get into organised religion."

Kankurou's face, replete with paint and a comical leer, was what greeted Tenten when she turned to find the owner of such a comment. She rolled her, well, eye and tutted. (She actually regretted the tutting sound moments after it had left her mouth because it would probably only give him added evidence that she was 'boring'.) "You and organised don't even belong in the same sentence together," she retorted.

"See how cruel she is to me?" Kankurou appealed to Lee.

"Don't you dare agree with him," Tenten warned her teammate when he looked as if he was about to open his mouth. "If you give him an inch, he'll run a mile with it."

Kankurou smirked at her. "You're not a trusting girl, are you?"

"Danger of the profession."

Lee had been watching the banter between them like a fan watching a particularly heated tennis rally, but he took the moment in which Kankurou was taking a breath to fuel his next retort to interrupt. "Tenten, are we still on for lunch?"

The bun-haired woman gave him a softer smile than the one she'd given Kankurou. "Of course. Invite Neji and his team along as well if they aren't too busy training."

Lee gave her a mock salute and Kankurou a nod of the head before he jogged off and left the pair alone. Tenten was suddenly all too aware of her scruffy attire, but then shrugged such foolishness aside.

This was Kankurou. He wore make-up, and a lot of it. He clearly wasn't in any position to hand out grooming tips.

"Shouldn't you be helping the officials get ready for tomorrow?" she asked curiously, fishing around in her pockets for the spare hairpins she always kept on her person.

Kankurou shrugged. "Not much we can do until the priests are done cleansing Gaara's sand, and I guess they've decided to be thorough."

The religion that predominated in Wind country both fascinated and bemused Tenten, particularly in conjunction with its worship within Suna itself. If their faith dictated that all taints of death must be erased through ritual and prayer, Suna-nin must find themselves spending an awful amount of their time at prayer. She hadn't yet quite grasped the actual practicalities of it – her only experience of the effects was today. The last day of the Chuunin exams and its final matches had been postponed until the stadium was cleansed, leaving the foreign parties with a free day to themselves. Though the memories of the day before did cast a subtle, silent pall over everything.

"Ah." Tenten could feel it getting progressively hotter as each minute passed, such was the steep gradient of the arc the sun followed out here. Her shirt – already sweat-soaked and sticking to her back and breasts – clung uncomfortably to her skin, a weight only slightly heavier than that of Kankurou's gaze on her when he thought she wasn't looking.

It made Tenten uncomfortable. Before, Kankurou had been safe. Fun and flirty, but safe. Then, somehow, things had changed over the past couple of days and everything he did suddenly had Meaning and Connotations and Subtext. Tenten really didn't like how their relationship had developed capitals; it made her edgy and an edgy Tenten was an awkward one, with too wide smiles and a habit of fidgeting.

"Well," she said finally, fingers toying with the hem of her shirt. "I should probably go and clean up or something."

The wicked gleam in Kankurou's dark eyes did not bode well for her peace of mind. "Need help?"

That was it. Tenten stopped her fidgeting and put her hands on her hips. "Okay, seriously," she started, feeling the heat of anger making the back of her neck flush red. "You and Neji need to stop this weird contest you're having to see who can freak me out the most. It's not appreciated." Neji hadn't quite been coming out with innuendoes as crude or suggestive as Kankurou's, but he'd been making his attentions clear in other more subtle ways. It was why Tenten had been seeking out Lee's company more and more these days – alone, she slunk around in the shadows, hoping that neither of them would find her.

Kankurou's smile was crooked. "Ah, don't tell me you don't like the attention really."

"I don't," she assured him in what she hoped was a frosty tone. Trying to look haughty and annoyed didn't work as well when she had to look up to meet his eyes. "It's annoying. And it's not amusing that you two are taking this macho competition too far. It's not a good joke anymore."

The Suna-nin's expression changed. Deepened. "Who says it's a joke?"

Tenten didn't know what to say. How to respond.

And, faced with such a dilemma, Tenten did the obvious thing.

She fled.

oOo

Tayuya looked to be a in a foul mood when Kidoumaru returned from his meeting with the leaders of Suna and Konoha. She was banging things around in the small communal kitchen they'd been assigned, banging things and with no real purpose it seemed – more to make noise and be violent without actually hurting anyone. Over the clatter of a saucepan and the ominous noises of china against china, Kidoumaru could hear her muttering to herself and presumed that a vast percentage of the inaudible words were rude.

He raised a silent, questioning eyebrow at Jiroubou and the two men had known each other long enough that no words were needed. "No idea," Jiroubou said with a sigh and a shrug. "She's been like this ever since she woke up – about an hour after you left."

Kidoumaru wondered whether her ire was solely due to her lack of sleep, or whether whatever had caused her lack of sleep was the culprit. He had been tempted to follow her and, here, 'tempted' was the key word. He would be the first to admit that he wasn't strongly bound by scruples or morals, but he respected Tayuya too much to intrude on her private moments.

Plus, she'd beat him senseless if she ever caught him.

"She didn't sleep much," he told Jiroubou. "And yesterday was…eventful."

More than any of them, Jiroubou had the face that best expressed sadness – nothing could quite erase the wicked slant of Kidoumaru's eyes or the stubborn tilt of Tayuya's mouth – and the larger man's sorrow was obvious. Seiichi may not have been his student, but children were precious in Oto and the loss was a hard one.

A particularly loud crash heralded the union between the tiled floor and a baking try. Both of them winced and gave each other equally resigned looks. Kidoumaru clapped Jiroubou on the shoulder (and only resented having to lean up to do so a tiny little bit.) "Get out while you can, Jirou. I'll talk to her."

Jiroubou didn't argue, showing that muscles didn't always mean a slow-working noodle.

This left Kidoumaru alone with a violent-sounding Tayuya and he thought he'd start simple. Non-threatening. "Hey."

"Fuck off."

So much for that.

Kidoumaru gave up on the stealthy approach and rested his elbows on the countertop. "Charming. What's got you all riled up?"

Her answer was to chuck a glass at him. He caught it, of course, but her intent was clear. "Tayu…"

"Fuck, Kidoumaru, just-." Then Tayuya surprised him because she suddenly stopped, suddenly stepped back from her building vehemence and took a breath. When she spoke again, her voice was still angry, but quietly so and tight like drawn wire. Its thinness made it bite into his skin. "It's nothing. PMS or something. So leave it the hell alone."

Kidoumaru had been cursed by Tayuya. He had been punched by her, had had his blood spilled by her, had suffered her anger and her venom and her violence all at once. But never had she shut him out like that before. Never had she chosen to not share her anger.

He hadn't even known that she _could_ choose.

It was enough to break the rhythm he usually took on when dealing with Tayuya (_her insults, his banter, her annoyance, his sly condescension and her eventual frustration_) and Kidoumaru watched her pour herself a glass of water with abortive, jerky movements. She was moving stiffly – more stiffly than last night in fact – as if her ribs were paining her more than they should have been.

"Hey," he said again, more gently than before, and he didn't get an instant rebuff this time. "Want to go and see Sakon and Ukon?"

Because he had known her for a ridiculous percentage of his lifetime, Kidoumaru was able to watch her thought processes beneath those flat, unfriendly irises with their shield of blood red hair. Tayuya weighed the indignity of actually expressing a need to see someone with the curious draw the twins seemed to have on her attention. Then he assumed that an itching desire to get out, to do something tipped the scales definitively because she put her glass down and folded her arms. "Fine," she said ungraciously.

Kidoumaru's eventual smile may have been lopsided, but it was still there. "Atta girl."

"Shut up."

oOo

Outside, Kidoumaru wasn't surprised to see Kiba waiting for them – he'd already asked permission from Temari to go and see the twins, which meant an escort would have been required. What he was surprised by was the sudden wave of hostility that rolled outwards from Tayuya as soon as she saw the Leaf shinobi.

"Kidoumaru-san," Kiba said by way of greeting before his eyes – as if drawn by an irresistible force – slid towards her. "Tayuya-."

"Come on, Kidoumaru," Tayuya said, and that tightness was back in both her face and voice. "We don't have time for this."

She would have moved on, but Kiba grabbed her wrist and turned her towards him, leaving Kidoumaru with the distinct impression that he was missing something here. Something so important that it could make the younger man reckless enough to actually lay hands on her.

"Tayuya," the Inuzuka said again, low and determined. "Hey, don't just ignore me."

Tayuya ripped herself out of his grasp with enough force that red marks rose up on her pale skin, roses on milk. "_Don't_ talk to me." The acid in that statement made even Kidoumaru blink before he came to his senses and backed off. For all that it was taking place in a public place, this was another of those private moments. So he moved away, to give them the semblance of space, but kept all of his senses focused on them.

If they were going to do it in front of him, he couldn't help but witness it after all.

"You're impossible!" Heat was rising in Kiba's voice and he probably thought he was being quieter than he actually was – the younger shinobi didn't seem the subtle type. "You walk away from me and expect me to just pretend it never happened?"

The statement dripped with clichés and Kidoumaru winced in sympathy, but that was quickly followed by an almost vicious spark of pride – something _had_ happened last night, and the Inuzuka lad was involved.

…he was surprised. He'd been aware of the younger man's curiosity concerning Tayuya (he didn't have to be Kiba's large white dog to be able to smell the undertones of desire emanating from him over the past few days) but he'd labelled it as a crush. And he certainly hadn't believed Tayuya willing to reciprocate. Willing to even indulge a Konoha shinobi in something like what he suspected had gone on.

This was, he thought ruefully, the price he paid for being arrogant enough to think that he knew Tayuya inside and out. Things had snuck up upon him because he'd _assumed_ he knew what she'd do. Or what she wouldn't do. And judging by the way in which Kiba's body curved almost unconsciously towards Tayuya's own, even as she bridled away from him, events of last night had definitely been in the category of doing instead of not doing.

The notion tightened something in his chest, made a little part of him constrict in alarm. With an internal sigh, he accepted the resurfacing of something he had long since resigned himself to and had moved on from before tucking it back into the vaults of his long-stretching memory.

The time for such silliness had passed a long time ago and he did indeed recognise it as silliness.

What made him sad, Kidoumaru decided (and maybe, maybe, that sadness was tinged with faintest apple stain of jealousy) was that Tayuya almost universally treated those who annoyed or angered her with a scornful, furious disdain. Watching her retreat behind her nose and throw up walls of ice around the usual bright flames of her ire was odd – anomalous – and all of it was different from how she usually dealt with the transient people in her life.

Tayuya didn't treat Kiba as if she cared because the woman never showed something as soft as that, but she did treat him as if he was someone worth defending against. And that meant he'd somehow threatened those barriers of hers.

The morning sun suddenly seemed icy.

Kiba continued to force himself into Tayuya's personal space, talking in half sentences as if he couldn't decide whether to protect his pride and dignity or to do his best to talk her down, and Kidoumaru knew that his tetchy companion could only take so much invasion.

He was right.

"Shut up and listen, and I'll try and make this simple for you," Tayuya finally hissed. "Maybe you think you're special. Maybe you think I'm some fucking damsel in a fucking tower to be courted. '_Look at the foreign girl, the one whose home my village practically destroyed – cultural guilt says I should throw her a bone and, hey, my dick counts!_'" Her mockery was intentionally cruel and Kidoumaru saw Kiba wince away – Tayuya knew how to zoom in on one's weak spots with merciless accuracy when she was riled up enough. Her expression was one that Kidoumaru recognised as something she dug up when she was at her most defensive and her eyes were pitiless and hard. "Take your amateur psychology somewhere else because I'm nobody's fucking charity case." Her smile was cold. "You got some good wank material out of it, but that's all. Don't aim higher than you deserve, mutt."

When Tayuya started walking, Kiba didn't. Soon, he was out of sight and Kidoumaru had finally found a pace that matched hers.

"Don't say a fucking word," Tayuya said tightly and Kidoumaru didn't. He saw how her eyes were a little too wide and he saw the way her fingers unconsciously wrapped around the stem of her flute until the knuckles turned white, but speaking…no, that he would not do.

This was a web whose tangles he could not fathom.

oOo

Shikamaru ambled along the street with the memory of the taste of Temari's hurried kiss that morning before she'd left adding a certain mellowness to his mood.

Then the bleakness in Kiba's normally lively eyes shattered that mellowness like so much spun sugar when they caught his gaze from across the road and, frowning, the lanky shinobi picked his way through the moderate crowd towards him.

"Yo," he said with deceptive idleness. When he got no response, he quirked an eyebrow and waved a long-fingered hand in front of Kiba's face. "Hey…anyone home?"

Kiba's eyes focused slowly like a behemoth rising from the depths of the ocean and he looked startled to find Shikamaru there. Then the lines of his mouth hardened again and he shook his head heavily.

"Why the hell do Otonin make every situation all the worse?" he asked bitterly. Shikamaru was still digesting that when a wave of Kiba's hand summoned Akamaru from the shadows he'd been lying in. "Do me a favour? Take over escort duty for me. They're heading towards the prison block."

"Who?"

"Kidoumaru-san." Kiba's expression darkened imperceptibly, but Shikamaru was a master of the human form and even that small change was noted, stored and analysed, even as his mind reeled with trying to put together fragments of theorisation to find the most likely explanation. "And Tayuya."

Then he was gone and Shikamaru could only voice a quiet "Oh…"

oOo

Upon entering the room (or cell) that was heavily guarded by sentries who had reluctantly allowed them admission, Tayuya had immediately and very deliberately picked a fight with Sakon. The pair stood facing each other across a table over which they exchanged increasingly caustic comments while, on the opposite side of the room, Ukon and Kidoumaru watched.

Ukon didn't know whether to smile or frown. "You'd think that some things would have changed." His eyes tilted to the left to take in Kidoumaru's tolerant and slightly amused expression.

"When it comes to Tayuya turning civilised, you could wait another nine years and still see no difference," Kidoumaru said. The dark-skinned man's tone may have been light, but – even with nearly a decade apart hanging in the air between them – Ukon could hear something darker beneath the cheeriness.

"Something up?"

Kidoumaru sighed and pressed a single finger against his temple, as if it ached. "Everything might as well have wings." The corner of his mouth twisted in a bitter smirk, making Ukon recall that, of all of them, it had been Kidoumaru who'd had the widest range of smiles. "How much do they tell you about what goes on outside?"

Ukon shrugged. "Not much. We don't ask and they don't offer." Despite his usual apathy, he cocked an inquiring brow in Kidoumaru's direction – the man had obviously been leading up to something and who was he to disappoint.

Isolated as he and his brother were from the rest of the world, suspended from the flow of time in their own little prison bubble, Ukon had witnessed his interest in events at large waning over the last nine years. He'd always been insular – only really caring about what happened to _him_ (superficially an odd thought for a twin until people realised that 'him' both included and encompassed Sakon), but the distance captivity forced upon him had only heightened his belief that, beyond his brother and himself, beyond that little yet vast world of _us_, nothing else mattered.

It said a lot about the formative years that he and his brother had spent with the rest of Orochimaru's personal bodyguards and the lead-wrought ties that had been formed (however unwillingly in some cases) that listening to Kidoumaru run through the events of the day before in a low tone evoked some sort of reaction in Ukon. He wasn't quite sure whether it was interest, outrage or sympathy, mainly because it turned out that emotions _could_ get rusty if you left them in cryo for too long.

Kidoumaru watched him as he digested it all, unfamiliar names and relations proving difficult to swallow in the quantity that they'd been given, and Ukon didn't feel at all uncomfortable being under scrutiny. It was a long while before he cast an appraising look in Tayuya's direction (the woman was haranguing Sakon with an impressive single-mindedness and he wasn't giving an inch) and there was an unembarrassed sort of curiosity in his gaze. "You know, I never pegged her as ever going to do the whole sex thing. I mean, she was prickly aged _eight_ and she never looked as if she was going to grow out of it."

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Kidoumaru giving another of those unreadable half-smiles and felt like a bit of an idiot. "Though I suppose she must have and you'd know best."

"Hmm?"

Ukon flushed – the curse of a pale complexion. "Were you lying about having a son then?" he accused, made irritable through awkwardness.

Kidoumaru had the cheek to look amused at that. "That had little to do with romancing Tayu into being less – well, prickly was a good choice of yours – and a _lot_ to do with trying to find a sterile pot erotic."

"…that's disgusting." Ukon grimaced and Kidoumaru – the sadist – cackled.

"What the hell are you two morons giggling about over there?" Tayuya asked irately from across the room. To Ukon's amusement, his twin looked just as annoyed that the rhythm of their row had been interrupted.

"Sperm," Kidoumaru said blithely.

Tayuya stared at them both blankly for a few heartbeats and then a disgusted look surfaced on her face. "Faggots," she said. "I knew it."

Something so close to normal – or at least normal as per nine years ago – startled a laugh out of Ukon, and Kidoumaru was doing the same right beside him. Tayuya turned away with a roll of her eyes, leaving the two of them to look almost shyly at each other when the spasms had faded. It was an odd, alien feeling this; that of an outdated intimacy that kept rearing its head in unexpected settings. It made Ukon feel younger, though he had to question just how young he'd even been back then.

"You ought to buy her a dictionary," he said dryly. "She could do with expanding that vocabulary of hers."

"Get her mad enough and she'll demonstrate _all_ the synonyms she knows. She just doesn't waste them on the likes of us most of the time."

As, once more, Ukon found laughter coursing through his veins, an ominous sort of foreboding rose in his mind in regards to what lay ahead.

While his world would always function so long as Sakon was around, he had to wonder whether he could bear to lose those he'd grown up with for a second time.

oOo

"I didn't think one of the things I'd have to worry about if I brought you out here would be you breaking hearts."

It was later, much later, after Jiroubou had joined them in Sakon and Ukon's room cum cell, and Tayuya had almost forgotten what she had sought to distract herself from. But that was Kidoumaru for you, making her face the things she didn't wish to.

Bastard.

She stopped in the middle of the hallway leading to their respective rooms – he took a few more paces before he caught on and halted as well, looking back at her. She glared at him and was then pissed off when it just seemed to bounce off of his neutral expression.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Tayuya said through gritted teeth. She was vaguely aware of the hot/cold pain of her nails digging into the soft flesh in her palm, blunt as they were.

Kidoumaru didn't flinch away from looking at her. "Yesterday, you tried to kill the Kazekage's sister. We are here on _their_ sufferance and you nearly ruined that. The Inuzuka is a close friend of the Hokage and we really cannot repair you souring relationships with them as well. So tell me what happened last night, Tayuya."

His use of her full name meant that he was serious and she felt sullenness curdle in her stomach. "Nothing," she growled. Just who did he think he was? Her father? Her brother? Some guy who had any claim on her at all?

Kidoumaru sighed and the implicit condescension made her bristle – she was well aware that her behaviour made him treat her like a child sometimes and she resented the fact. Tayuya felt her hostility flare tangibly along her skin, but the acid ripples in the air didn't stop him from reaching out to grip her shoulder.

She only suffered his grip because he used all six hands.

"Hey," he said. "Listen. I know that, usually, it'd be none of my business, but the past few days have been awful and you _know_ that you get reckless when your emotions are high. No, don't give me that look." He smiled sadly down at her and Tayuya cursed the fact that he knew her so well.

She still gave him the look anyway, the one that spoke volumes on her interpretation of his intelligence.

"I'm always telling you that maybe you'd be happier if you…relaxed a little with people. And, yeah, our lifestyle doesn't leave much room for that sort of thing, but it doesn't hurt to have fun every now and then. Bleed off the pressure. Granted, I didn't expect it to happen with a guy from Konoha, but you've always had dubious tastes."

She bit his wrist for that, at the same time as she stepped on his toes. He winced theatrically, his reaction as much of a routine as her half-hearted actions. Curiously, she couldn't summon any real anger against him, but she had enough pride to go through the motions anyway.

To her shame, she was almost listening, and she blamed the draining effects the past few days had placed upon her.

"Maybe you can kill two birds with one stone. Bleed off some…ah….pressure, as I said, _and_ not piss off a guy who has the Hokage's ear. Hell, if you want to go for three birds and give us a rock to stand on in Konoha through him, by all means do." Here, his voice dropped into an uncomfortable level of fondness that made Tayuya squirm in disgruntled embarrassment. "Just do whatever gets you through the day that doesn't make the other villages want to wage war on us. Again."

With as much dignity as she could muster while twenty-four fingers and six thumbs dug into the tense muscles of her upper arms, Tayuya snorted. "Who says I even want him?"

Kidoumaru's smirk was pointed. "I know exactly when last you got laid. And it's long enough that you probably have cobwebs down there."

With his hands on her shoulders like that, he wasn't able to guard against the sucker punch she landed in his stomach.

That made her feel slightly better.

"Sign of frustration that is," he wheezed, unable to let the point go even as he cradled his abdomen protectively.

"Smartass."

"Frigid bitch."

"Frigi-! And just when the fuck did you last find a woman desperate enough to do you?"

"Well, that Haruno woman _is_ mighty easy on the eyes."

"…I'm leaving now."

oOo

"I say get her drunk."

Kiba sighed in exasperation and chucked an empty can at Naruto's very blond head. "That wasn't useful the first three times you suggested that."

With the dregs of Kiba's soda speckling his head and shoulders, Naruto cast him a woeful look in reciprocation. "It is so – chicks always respond better when they're boozed up."

"Except Sakura."

"…except Sakura-chan."

Sasuke snorted softly, clearly thinking the conversation was below him. Or agreeing with the comment regarding Sakura. Kiba wasn't sure – he'd known Sasuke for all of his adult life and he _still_ didn't know how to read the guy. Frankly, he wasn't even sure he liked him.

"Hey, does anybody in this room even remember that she tried to kill me way back when?" a lazily peevish voice inquired.

Kiba grinned in spite of himself. His feelings as per Shikamaru were much more solid and easy to define – he was a good guy, a buddy, and hellishly good-natured, which made him a good target to tease when you didn't actually want too much of a reaction.

Across the room from him, Chouji's deep laugh rumbled comfortably through the air. "As if you care about that anymore," the large Akimichi warrior chided his friend.

Shikamaru shrugged. "I just thought it should be mentioned – it is proof that she's kinda troublesome."

"Says the guy who's practically dating Temari-san, the bossiest kunoichi I've ever met."

"Except Sakura-chan," Naruto chimed in.

"…except Sakura."

"Guys," Kiba interrupted. "D'you think we could possibly get back on subject? What the hell am I supposed to do?"

Naruto stretched, showing that he had a surprising amount of bend in him if he could arch his back like that while still sitting cross-legged on the floor. "I dunno, dude, you've kinda screwed this one up. I mean, hitting on her the evening after one of her genin gets electrocuted? Not all that smooth."

Kiba felt a flush stain his cheeks, even through his ruddy tan. "I didn't—she kissed _me_."

"The flute girl kissed you?" Everyone turned to look at Sai who, until now, had remained silent and, therefore, nearly invisible in his armchair. The look of polite interest that he conjured up didn't bode well. "Did you copulate?"

Silence reigned for a while before Naruto's howls of laughter broke it. "Kiba wishes!" he yelped between cackles and he appeared far too amused for his own good in Kiba's opinion.

He threw a pillow at him this time. "Shut up. And no, Sai, we didn't. She ran out on me and then made it _very_ clear this morning that she didn't want any more to do with me." He growled – a feral, canine sound that made Akamaru's ears flatten in worry and sympathy. "So where the hell does that leave me?"

"Desperate?" Shikamaru offered dryly, making Kiba wish he hadn't thrown his only weapons at Naruto. Though he had to agree – even letting his mind wander back to the intense, molten moments of the evening before (at least before things had gone disastrously wrong) had the risk of reaching a state of arousal that he didn't particularly want to display in public.

Damn redheads. Damn tetchy, foulmouthed, _angry like you wouldn't fucking believe_ redheads who triggered every Inuzuka gene in him that made him want to _make_ her submit to his dominance.

"Horny more like." Naruto seemed to have finally recovered from his state of uncontrollable mirth and, for once, actually had a valid suggestion to offer. "Ask Sasuke."

"Huh?" It took a while for Kiba to get the point of that, but it did finally reach him: Tayuya, Oto, _Sasuke,_ and – to the despair of his pride – he felt a surge of hope at the prospect. He turned to the Uchiha expectantly and wasn't the only one.

Under all those gazes, Sasuke looked annoyed and, for a disappointing moment, Kiba thought he would refuse, just to be contrary (it was something the bastard would do…) Then the pale man rolled his eyes again, but it was a sign of an acceptance, albeit a grudging one.

"She's stubborn," he said, deliberately not looking at anyone and doing his best to appear as bored and moody as he could manage without slitting a wrist or two. "And violent. And not at all refined. She's not someone you could romance." His eyes drifted briefly over Kiba and a superior smirk ghosted across those thin lips. "For which you are very, very lucky."

"Oi," Kiba grumbled, only stopping when Shikamaru sent him a significant look.

Sasuke turned away again and focused on what must have been a very fascinating square foot of wall. "…just keep trying. Work her up. Her first instincts will be to reject you on principle, just because she won't want you to succeed, but if she's sunk down far enough to contaminate her mouth with your saliva, then she'll probably do it again if you make her angry enough." A pause. "Or she'll hit you."

"I like her already," Naruto said gaily.

Kiba put his face in his hands. "My dick is doomed," he groaned and half-listened when the other guys laughed. His despair wasn't all feigned though because he couldn't deny the tiny, flickering spark of hope that had ignited somewhere in his gut and his stubborn nature would only fan it higher.

"Tomorrow's another day," Chouji told him kindly. "Things'll look better in the morning."

"Only if she puts me out of my misery with those demon things of hers before then," Kiba grumbled.

Naruto clapped an unhelpful hand down on his shoulder. "This is what you get for going after the woman in the area most likely to hit you instead of kiss you."

"Except Sakura."

"…except Sakura-chan." A beat. "Damn."

oOo

**Author's Notes:**

Woo, I am _finally_ back. For the last six weeks, a friend and I have been backpacking across the USA and Canada, doing the whole hostel thing, plus a cruise up to Alaska at the end from which I only returned two days ago. Fucking _awesome_. Plus I got my A-level results yesterday and I passed with straight As, so I'm definitely going to uni in the autumn. Imperial, here I come!

Well, between now and when the last chapter of Secondhand Faith was released, a lot has happened. I turned eighteen (yay!) and I finished school (double yay!) Then there was the trip of a lifetime (well, until next summer anyway) which means I'm pretty much in a vicarious mood today. So, indulge me in some requests.

Firstly, it would be great if you could check out my profile and answer the poll there. Yes, SF is coming to a close (in the next two chapters, probably) and I'm trying to decide which project to concentrate on next. The poll won't decide it, but it will certainly influence my decision (and, right now, I think it's dominated by Team Gai fans who were referred there from my NejiTenLee stories, so all you Otonin lovers should even things up in there!)

Secondly, it was my birthday/graduation. In terms of celebration, you can do one of three things: you can review (this is the first and only time you will ever catch me asking for reviews!), you can write me something (as short as you want, but if you really want to make me happy, throw the Otonin in!) or you can get me to write _you_ something. Just leave me a prompt somewhere (review, email or PM) and I'll write a piece for you! It's been a while since I've done any challenge/gift-fics and I'd like the practice. So go on – humour me. Please. You'd be doing _me_ a favour.

Thirdly, if you like the Sound Four (or Five, or Six, depending on your maths) you can check out the C2 community that **Racheakt** and I have set up in their honour. It's called **Syncopation** and I'm aiming for it to be a reliable collection of _decent_ Otonin fanfic.

Thanks for listening! And I apologise for the abnormally demanding AN this time around – don't worry, I'll go back to being meek and short-winded next chapter.

**In Next Week's Episode…**

Guys, I got back from Canada _two days ago_. It's 1am now and I've just finished writing this chapter because I felt guilty about not updating for so long. I have absolutely no idea what'll happen in the next chapter. Guess! Prizes for the wackiest guess and the one that comes closest to the actual mark.


	17. Terminal Velocity

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** Terminal Velocity

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** …for this chapter? M, just to be on the safe side, for sexual content.

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

The crux of the matter as Kiba had come to see it was that, while he was good with women, he didn't _understand_ them. Not even close. It was probably why he was guilty of having made Hinata cry so much when they were younger. Momentarily, he experienced a pang of longing for home, where his two teammates were both being trained for their role as heirs in each of their respective clans. He escaped this by having Hana, something he didn't usually regret since it almost seemed natural for the Inuzuka to be matriarchal – and his older sister was proving to be a good clan head despite her young age upon ascension – but it sometimes felt like something he couldn't share with them.

Just like how he wasn't able to share his current dilemma with them now.

He wondered what Hinata would say and didn't need to imagine Shino's disapproval.

Kiba eyed the dregs of his beer – the last out of the six-pack he'd procured during his roundabout way 'home' – and downed them with a grim sort of resignation. Liquid courage was what he needed and said need was depressing. Yeah, jokes had always been made about the similarities between a dog chasing a ball and the way Kiba enjoyed pursuing women, but this was starting to be ridiculous. No woman was worth the trouble he'd been put through already. The female in question was hostile and angry and had a chip on her shoulder large enough to be seen from space. She was unreasonable and stubborn and, really, in terms of attractiveness, wasn't going to win any competitions. And what with her being part of a village that had tried to destroy his own on numerous occasions, the conclusion he reached was always the same – she _really_ wasn't worth it.

…except that she fascinated him. Tayuya of Oto fascinated him to a degree that he'd never really considered before and it was unreasonable – irrational! – considering the short time he'd actually known her.

He was, he concluded with a sigh that made Akamaru look at him quizzically, deeply in both like and lust with Tayuya. Not love (because he wasn't anywhere near romantic enough to fall in love with a woman in less than a week) but her sheer unsuitability had first of all been a challenge and was now an obstacle that he kept catching his mind trying to solve when it thought he wasn't paying attention. Barriers like distance and politics and, oh, how she'd nearly killed Shikamaru when they were twelve.

"You're an idiot," he told himself quietly and ran fingers through his shaggy mass of hair. The hand paused as he stared at nothing in particular, and his second sigh was even heftier than the first. "But better an idiot than a coward."

And now he was talking to himself. Excellent.

His beer can clattered when he unevenly placed it on the table and he steadied it with his free hand. The metal was cool and dewy under his fingertips, though the otherwise pleasant sensation of that and the buzz the alcohol had given him were at odds with his unsettled mind. But he'd run out of distractions and the time was as right as it was ever going to be. With a sound of resignation that bordered on a groan, Kiba heaved himself to his feet. On his right, Akamaru did the same, shaking his cream coloured coat drowsily.

"You can sit this one out, partner," Kiba told him affectionately, smiling at his canine companion's quizzical look that swiftly turned dubious. "I don't need a dog for this one."

If he'd been human, Kiba would have bet good money on Akamaru rolling his eyes at that. He rubbed the big dog's ears roughly before grabbing his jacket and heading for the door.

Behind him, he heard Akamaru grumbling as he settled back down to resume his nap.

The Suna nin on the door gave him an odd look, as if wondering why on earth Kiba would even want to set foot in the building that housed the Otonin, but let him in anyway.

The female Otonin he vaguely remembered as the one who minded the children gave him an equally odd look when he asked which room was Tayuya's.

Neither of these compared with the look he received from Kidoumaru after Kiba had set his jaw and knocked on Tayuya's door. It was an odd one, running through what Kiba thought was shock, then anger, then something that might have been melancholy resignation, and was – finally – dry amusement. "I was just letting myself out," he told Kiba in a low voice as he held the door open. The Inuzuka moved warily to walk past him and Kidoumaru tossed his parting words back over his shoulder. "Someone to see you, Tayu. Remember what we talked about."

Kiba looked past the doorway to where Tayuya stood. She looked surprised and suspicious both, but surprisingly soft in cotton trousers that hung low on angular hipbones to drown her feet and a black vest-top. From this distance, her eyes were dark and unreadable and she was frowning…but the expression that was so usually hard and aggressive on her strong-featured face was muted. Uncertain, he wanted to say as his heart beat with sudden, wild, _irrational_ hope, or bemused.

She obviously didn't understand why he was here.

She obviously didn't know Inuzuka Kiba never gave up.

His tongue was dry in his mouth. The logical part of his mind cried foul. But it was too late to turn back and, however much trouble she'd already put him through, he couldn't deny that he _wanted_ to be here, come what may.

"Sorry for interrupting," he said lamely.

Tayuya shrugged stiffly. "He was leaving anyway." She was fidgeting, he noticed, rubbing the cloth covering her thigh between her fingers. It was only a small comfort that she seemed as uncomfortable in this unprecedented situation as he was because he'd just about run out of words.

Since he was normally a smooth one with the ladies, this was quite the blow to his ego.

The stalemate was broken as her frown evolved into a real scowl. "Close the door, fucker, you're making a draft."

That was more normal. The door clicked behind Kiba and it only then occurred to him to scan the room…

Tayuya caught on fast. "Hisoka's asleep," she informed him flatly (again, there was a curious lack of hostility in her voice – only defensiveness registered, even with his sensitive ears.) "It is pretty damn late."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Kiba replied sheepishly, sobering up as he remembered that he had far more to apologise for than his lack of regard for the sleeping habits of others. "Look, Tayuya…about what I said last night…"

"Shut up." Okay, that hadn't been what he was expecting. His look of surprise must have been obvious because, if anything, Tayuya managed to look even more supremely uncomfortable than before. "Don't fucking grovel. I hate that. People shouldn't be that pathetic."

"…Oh." '_Oh?'_ he asked himself silently and with considerable irritation at his own infallible ability to sound like a moron with a single neuron at such a critical time. _Then_ it hit him that Tayuya – _Tayuya_ of all people – had essentially told him that an apology wasn't necessary.

'_Sweet!'_ part of him rejoiced.

'_What's the catch?'_ the rest of him asked.

He still didn't quite know what to do. Yeah, she hadn't slammed the door in his face, or sunk back down to the level of anger he'd gotten the last time he'd seen her, but she was still across the room from him. Her crossed arms and the way she hid behind her forelock weren't exactly encouraging.

But Kiba was Kiba and his body yearned for hers, so he took a step towards her. And another. Then another.

She watched him with those deep and unfathomable eyes right up until she had to tilt her head back to look him in the eye, but not once did she move to stop him, nor to encourage him. To his eye, inexperienced as it was when it came to this particular woman, it wasn't coldness that had stilled her hand, but – curiously for her! – hesitancy. Perhaps even not knowing how to react without the hot spur of anger to urge her along.

…God, she was lovely to look at. Not beautiful, never beautiful, because her jaw was too strong and her manner too sharp-edged, but he loved to eye up the subtle curve between her hip and shoulder, or to run his gaze over the stubborn set of her surprisingly full lips.

He gave in to an urge that had snuck up upon him in the time that he'd known her and picked up a lock of that burning hair. It was drier than he expected – heavy velvet to the smooth silk he'd expected – and a plain yet clean scent rose up from a mane that was still damp from a shower. Kiba held his breath as he ran the strand of red between his fingers up, up and up, until his fingertips rested against her cheekbone.

Carefully, he cupped her cheek in a hand that dwarfed her face and was appropriately startled when she jerked away from his touch.

"You're doing it again, git," she told him sharply.

Hurt welled up in his chest, twining around the indignation that rose up simultaneously. "Doing _what_?"

"Treating me as if I might break!" She scowled up at him and jabbed a finger into his sternum. "Don't be a dick. You lost to Sakon and Ukon, and I could beat 'em any day of the bleeding week before I kicked you into the next one. _I. Am. Not. Weak._" A jab punctuated each word aside from the final one, where she slammed her palm into his chest and kept it there. "I don't need to be fucking _courted_."

Kiba had always known that he wasn't the brightest bulb in the pack. Oh, he was plenty brave – strong, too – but he left the plans to smart cookies like Neji or Shikamaru or Sakura. So he was used to it taking him a while to twig on things that were usually instantly obvious to his more intellectual peers.

With Tayuya, it had taken him a while, but he got it. He finally _got_ it.

Kiba didn't apologise for his denseness when it came to the finer points of handling women (he didn't need to be told twice.) Instead he just let go of restraint (he'd never liked it much, anyway) and allowed a wicked grin to blossom on his features.

Tayuya rolled her eyes at that, but it lacked malice – proved when she stepped that much closer to him and fisted her hands in his jacket. "So, dog-boy," she said, and the sudden purr in her voice made him shiver in appreciation, "Fancy a shag?"

Oto slang threw him. "A shag?"

She laughed impishly and very deliberately leaned up to lick the place where his pulse accelerated like a jackrabbit's beneath his skin. "A fuck, idiot. Don't make me ask twice."

He didn't.

oOo

Hisoka was sleeping in Tayuya's bed, but she wasn't particularly fussy about where Kiba pressed her down onto her back.

The couch would do just fine.

What followed after scratched an itch that Tayuya hadn't even realised had been bugging her. It hadn't occurred to her that she'd missed the feel of a man pressed up against her or that it had been too long since she'd been able to make someone cry out in something other than pain.

The dog-boy had finally seemed to come to terms with the fact that she wasn't some broken charity case and he didn't hold back, unabashedly sliding a hand down across her rib-cage to palm her hip, then climb back up, but _underneath_ her shirt. She arched her back for him then, but didn't hesitate to retaliate later when she discovered that his nipples were even more sensitive than hers.

Much later, after a lengthy struggle to assert dominance (which she won through underhanded means involving surprise attacks with hands and lips both) Tayuya straddled his narrow hips and sank down with a growl of appreciation.

She was small and he was not. Neither of them lasted long.

oOo

Afterwards, with Tayuya collapsed on top of him and the sweat cooling on their skin, Kiba finally remembered how to breathe.

"You're more trouble than you're worth," he told her, too lazy to sound anything other than sated and satisfied.

Her response was to clench around his still semi-hard member and he gasped, hips twitching up involuntarily. "Yeah," she replied, sounding far too smug. "I've heard that."

oOo

Tenten liked her bed. No, correction, she _loved_ it. It had been suitably inviting the night before and had, surprisingly, soothed her to sleep before she even managed to get much tossing and turning done. The mattress here beat her futon at home, hands down, and she'd already made a mental note to spend some of her earnings on a Suna-style bed.

Comfort wasn't a frequent visitor in the life of a shinobi, particularly one as badly paid as a chuunin academy instructor. So when a knock on the door, just as the rosy fingers of dawn were painting the desert red, roused her from a dream where she was lying in a room full of goosedown, she was none too pleased.

"_What?_" she whisper-yelled as she yanked her door open, only to do a double take that belonged in a bad movie at the sight of Neji. The Hyuuga man looked far too well groomed for (a quick glance at her alarm clock proved necessary there) half five in the morning.

Tenten, on the other hand, was in her underwear. And hadn't even paused to put on her eye-patch.

"Eeek," she said, embarrassingly and eloquently, then slammed the door in his face.

Two minutes later, after she'd hastily pulled on a dressing gown and had de-tangled her eye-patch, she was halfway ready to face Neji.

"Right. Again. _What_ are you doing here?"

"I thought you should get up."

"…"

"…"

"…?"

Tenten suddenly had a dawning, _horrible_ realisation. It was written in the too calm expression on his face and the way his posture was slightly stiffer than his usual rod-up-the-ass straightness.

…it was far too early for this.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," she hissed savagely. "You're here early, just to make sure you beat Kankurou, aren't you?"

To the shock of both her and the world at large, Hyuuga Neji managed to look slightly guilty. Of course, that just meant that he went obliquely deadpan, but Tenten had always been able to read his aristocratic face like a book.

She took a breath. A deep one. "Men!" she yelled in exasperation.

A tad louder than she'd wanted to at such an early hour, actually. The door of the room next to her opened in response to the racket she'd created. This surprised her because Shikamaru was normally a heavy enough sleeper to rival the dead. The sentiment quickly faded when a figure replete with tousled blonde hair and sleepily irritated eyes emerged, in much the same state of undress as Tenten herself had been found in not much earlier.

"Why are you Leaf guys always so damn noisy?" Temari asked with a yawn.

Tenten winced. "Sorry, Temari-san." A skinny form in yesterday's trousers and no shirt also came out into the corridor. "Sorry, Shikamaru…"

The brown-haired young man yawned widely, molars clearly on show until he closed his mouth and brushed the sleep away from his eyes. "S'okay. Oh, hey, Neji. What are you here for?"

Tenten found Neji's sudden look of dignified innocence ominous.

"Would anybody like to come out for breakfast?"

oOo

Kankurou was miffed. It was a ridiculous word, but one that unfortunately described his current mood down to the t. He'd felt suitably smug on his way to the hotel given out to the Konoha lot, bright and early, feeling that he'd managed to outwit Hyuuga-hime by getting to Tenten early.

He'd felt _less_ smug when he'd arrived and she hadn't been there.

"Don't pout – it doesn't suit you."

"Fuck off, Baki," Kankurou replied snippily, sitting back in his seat with his arms folded. His former teacher just smiled beatifically as he listened to Gaara discuss the introduction to the final day of the Chuunin exams with Naruto. Kankurou's frown grew infinitesimally deeper. "What are you so happy about?"

A smirk from Baki. "What are you so unhappy about?" he countered.

"Konoha women," Kankurou replied with, perhaps, excessive bitterness. "You?"

"Heh. The same."

"…"

The sheer lack of justice in the situation struck Kankurou temporarily dumb, at least long enough for Temari to sneak into the Kages' box. "Where have you been?" He even sounded grumpy to himself.

"Breakfast," she murmured. "With some of the Leaf people."

Suspicion grew like flowers in the desert after a rare rainfall. "Who?"

"Shikamaru, Tenten and Neji. Why?"

"Traitor!"

oOo

Neji, though outsiders would guess his eyeline to be levelled at the back of the chair in front of him, was actually looking towards the box where he knew the irreverent brother of the Kazekage was sitting. And he was smirking – on the inside, of course.

The Byakugan was _such_ a useful thing to have sometimes.

Granted this morning had been rather less subtle than his original mode of attack, but he was becoming pressed for time and, well…Hyuuga were not built for losing.

Beside him, Ino yawned widely and propped her chin up on a closed fist. Leaning towards him as she was, her long mane of platinum blonde hair spilled into Neji's seat and, glare at her as he might, she didn't move. "These speeches all go on for so damn long," she complained with fervent bitterness.

On his other side, Shikamaru grumbled about her not appreciating a chance for a good nap. The pair started bickering, not seeming to either note or care that Neji was caught in the middle of a row that had been ongoing since they were tiny.

Neji wished that he was sitting next to someone _sane_, but Chouji was on Ino's right, happily finishing off a breakfast roll, and Tenten had very quickly sat down between Sai and Lee, a whole two people down from him.

She'd always been cute when she was embarrassed.

Neji half closed his eyes (an illusion, since his eyelids had always been superfluous) and settled down to ignore the idiots around him with all his might. It worked fairly well, right up until the point when he was distracted by the very noise he sought to block out disappearing.

The silence was so anomalous for his present company that it was deafening. And it was because, when he actually withdrew out of himself enough to look around, the Inuzuka and Tayuya of Oto were walking past them.

Side by side.

And talking.

And _Kiba had his 'oh yeah, I scored a big one' face on._

"He must have doped her," Ino whispered, sounding stunned.

Sai's eyes narrowed in interest at that. "Oh, so drugs are an acceptable stage in the courting of-."

"NO!" His peers hurried to interrupt that dangerous line of thought.

Shikamaru didn't look all that surprised. "When doesn't Kiba get his way with women?" he asked mildly, drawing yet another scandalised look from Ino.

"With 'women', sure," she said. ("Oh, is the girl with the flute actually a man with a flute?" Sai asked Tenten far too loudly.) "But she doesn't count! She doesn't even have decent boobs!" By now, all of her close age-mates were listening avidly, aside from Lee who was only paying attention to Gaara's speech – he loved pomp and circumstance with a passion and didn't seem to be affected by talk of breasts.

"They're not that bad," Shikamaru said dryly, earning a raised eyebrow from Neji. Was a man meant to judge a woman's assets, even if said woman had once tried to kill said man? Then again, Shikamaru had always been unflappable.

Ino just gave her childhood friend a dirty look. "Doesn't anyone else think that he's crazy?"

Shikamaru shrugged off her ire, but it was Chouji who spoke up next. "Honestly? Not in present company. Shikamaru's dating Temari-san-."

"We're not 'dating'."

"—Okay, but you're still _involved_ with the sister of the Kazekage. And Tenten's being courted by Kankurou-san-."

"Not willingly!" (That made Neji smirk a little.)

"—_Fine_. Unwillingly, but do you see my point here? We don't seem to be particularly good at keeping away from people who are our allies now, but also _happened_ to have tried to kill us in various capacities at various points in our lives." This was one of the longest speeches Neji had ever heard from the usually quiet Chouji. It was also interesting to see the muscled young man look pointedly in Ino's direction. "And what about the son of Water Country's daimyo?"

The blond turned red at that point, but didn't seem to have an argument.

Chouji shrugged, seeming to take the matter as closed. "We're his friends. We should just be happy that he's happy."

"He certainly looks happy," Tenten commented wryly, nodding in the direction from which the topic of discussion was approaching with a self-satisfied grin on his face. "Oi, Kiba, turn down the post-coital glow a little bit, there's a good boy."

"Couldn't if I tried," he retorted as he sprawled in a spare seat behind Neji.

"Have a good night?" the Nara asked sardonically.

"Probably better than yours."

"Oh, I don't know," Tenten interjected with a wicked little smile that wrinkled her one visible eye. "Temari-san looked pretty comfortable, lounging around your room in her underwear." Shikamaru chose that moment to closely examine the clouds above their heads. Tenten turned back to Kiba. "Happy as we are that you're taking an interest in other cultures, you really know how to make your life…eventful."

"He chews on the furniture if he gets too bored," Shikamaru murmured, eyes still skyward, and earned himself a smack on the top of his head from the Inuzuka in question.

"You're all just jealous," Kiba said with a grin that rubbed gratingly over Neji's sensibilities. He watched Tenten shake her head fondly and return to listening to the end of a speech she'd largely ignored, their peers following suit.

Neji chose to do the same.

"So," said Sai brightly into the lull in conversation, "Was she favourably accepting of your genitals?"

oOo

"Um, Tayuya-sensei?"

"What, brat?"

"Why is Kiba-san fighting with his friends?"

Tayuya looked impatiently back towards where the mutt had gone back to sit with the other Leaf-wusses and found him holding the black-haired faggot in a mean headlock. She shook her head in disdain at such idiocy and turned back to turfing lower-ranked Otonin out of the seats meant for her and her charges. "Because they're fairies, Kaede."

"_Ohhh_."

Kidoumaru, the annoying git, smirked up at her. "He's a 'fairy', is he now, Tayuya? Then why were you _both_ late for breakfast?"

Tayuya just flipped him the finger and made sure to knock his arm off of the armrest when she sat down beside him. "It's not as if I missed much – the bastard sure doesn't know when to shut up," she said in regards to the Kazekage's speech.

"It's all about protocol," Kidoumaru replied absently as he watched the Kages' box. Tayuya was aware of Kaede and Dai sitting down on the other side of her and was suddenly and very conscious of Seiichi's absence. It made her clench her fist tightly, the small pain of nails in flesh easing an emotion she wasn't familiar with and _certainly_ didn't like.

"Fuck protocol," she said, but quietly enough that Kidoumaru only gave her one of his annoying, condescending eye slants.

She listened to the opening speech half-heartedly – it was the blond idiot's turn now, and he didn't sound anywhere near as intelligent as the Kazekage had.

"Don't get too attached," Kidoumaru suddenly said lowly to her right. The six-armed freak sounded…sad, somehow, and not knowing what was going through his head had always pissed her off. "You know that."

Tayuya snorted. "First you want me to shag him, now you don't want me to get fucking attached. Make up your bloody mind." She snorted at his raised eyebrow and kicked him idly in the shin. "I know."

"Good." Kidoumaru sat back in his seat, lips barely moving when he spoke. "We must remember where we stand in all of this."

"…yeah."

oOo

Kiba satisfied himself with one more noogie and then dumped Sai back in his seat. By now it was Naruto's turn to speak and Kiba was tempted to yell encouragement his friend's way, only the last time he'd done so had earned him a smack from both Tenten and Ino. _And_ Sakura reamed him out later, but that had only been because she was pissed off that Naruto had happily _yelled back_.

"He's getting better at this public stuff," he commented to Shikamaru. Neji, sitting on Shika's other side, gave him a haughty look – the old fart probably didn't approve of anyone talking during any sort of official ceremony – but Kiba ignored him as he sprawled over the skinnier lad's shoulders. It was an Inuzuka thing, he reckoned, and his friends had become used to it, even the girls.

(Not that he tried it with Neji or the Uchiha – he might get frostbite from Neji, and Sasuke wouldn't hesitate to cut off his arm.)

"Yeah," Shikamaru replied with an ironic look. "He doesn't use anywhere _near_ so many cuss words anymore." A pause. "Look after yourself, Kiba. You know that why say – 'play with fire…'"

"…'And get your dick burned,' yeah, I know," Kiba finished for him. "But I'm allowed to have fun. And she's cool, Shika, she really is." His friend's smile was quietly amused. "Not to mention _amazing_ in the sack. Like, wild animal amazing. And I bet she could be real kinky as well."

"I'm stopping listening now."

Kiba laughed softly and went back to pretending to listen to the speech while his mind happily replayed the events of the night before. It had been fun, but he still wanted to mess around in the comfort of a bed. Or a table…oh yeah, a table would be good.

He was gleefully imagining what it would be like to chase her through Konoha's woods and actually have to _catch_ his prize when Shikamaru's shoulders stiffened.

"Kiba…!" he said, but needlessly because the Inuzuka could already see it.

Tayuya, standing on top of the Kages' box.

Tayuya, standing just where the guards of the foreign diplomats couldn't see her.

Tayuya, shaping seals and yelling "Death to the persecutors of Oto!" before an explosion engulfed both her and the box of dignitaries, sending a wave of smoke and melting sand into the stalls of screaming civilians.

Ash and shreds of burning clothes floated down in front of Kiba's eyes and he couldn't even say a word as, around him, chaos raged…

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

Okay, so I last updated this in August. It's my first year of university! And I'm living in a hall of residence that is seventy percent male – I spend so much of my time battling testosterone poisoning that I barely have time to sleep, let alone write.

Anyway, here's a chapter to keep you all happy and, hopefully, on the edges of your seats.

I debated for a while how much detail to go into with Kiba and Tayuya – I like smut as much as the average anime fan, but I'm always conscious that ff dot net is my main archive, so it couldn't be too hardcore. Maybe one day, when I'm appropriately bold enough…

A few things – firstly, everyone worship **Claymade**, who has written me a one-shot about the Otonin that is officially what I consider to be the best piece of fiction about them that I've ever read. It's called **A Secret Little Game** and you should all read it. It has everything I look for in fanfiction and more. Please, praise him because I am honoured to have had such a piece gifted to me.

Secondly, a message to **Judo Creature**: don't worry, I haven't forgotten about your request. It is a work in progress, and I'm very happy with the two thousand words of it that I've written so far.

Thirdly, **Claymade** and **Anon E. Mouse**, you both get a drabble request out of me for your cute and wacky guesses as to what this chapter would entail.

And, finally, a small (hah!) rant about Kidoumaru and Tayuya because people, **Sycogerl64** in particular, made interesting comments concerning their relationship. I actually feel pretty damn sorry for Kidoumaru because I treat him so badly. In **Secondhand Faith**, they obviously have a child together, but that's it as far as Tayuya's concerned. She sees him as the least annoying of her teammates and she kind-of-sort-of respects him (not that she'd ever admit to it) and he's also the one she's most likely to ever defer to.

As for Kidoumaru…it's a little more complicated. Part of him – and I'm not sure how large a part – loves her. As in, really, truly loves her, however irrational it is. But he's logical enough to know that Tayuya doesn't _do_ love – it's not in her personality, at all – and he's never, ever going to be a martyr about it. It sounds clichéd, but he actually does just _accept_ that it's never going to happen, and (most of the time) he doesn't want it to. He likes their relationship the way it is, aside from those little, quiet moments when he can stop being a shinobi and just be a man who dreams a little…

He loves her enough to leave her be – that's the crux of it.

So they do have a very intimate dynamic, but not one that's between lovers (though I do actually write them, half-believing that they've actually had sex at SOME point in their lives.) They're more than comrades…but, while I ship Kidoumaru and Tayuya like you would not believe, in **Secondhand Faith**, it's unlikely to happen. Sure, there are always going to be undercurrents, but Kidoumaru's been living like this for a long while now – he's not got any plans to change it.

So, yeah, I'm mean to him, keeping him all bittersweet and far too nice for his own good in this particular story. I shall make it up to him one day! [/rant] (Sorry.)

So, the next chapter is the last one! The end is in sight, folks!

PS: I find myself in need of a good beta since the monster that is **A Year in a Rainsoaked Country** is looking to be finished soon enough, and it's in a style that's quite new for me, so I'd like a second opinion. It won't be ready for a while, but I like to be prepared – can anyone point me in the direction of a good editor?

**In next week's episode…**

'_Things were all going to hell, but Kiba refused to let go of Naruto's sleeve as he stared desperately into what he hoped were the eyes of his friend, not of his Hokage. "_Please_, Naruto, you've just got to trust me on this one." It was a longshot, a huge thing to ask because it required Naruto to act on nothing but secondhand faith._

_Kiba just hoped that it was enough.'_


	18. Supernova

**Title:** Secondhand Faith

**Chapter Title:** Supernova

**Author:** Lell

**Current Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Spoilers…pretty much up until the current chapters. While considered an AU, many things in the timeline remain the same. So, read at your own risk (though that warning applies to most of my work…) Tayuya's mouth and all subsequent obscenities and breaches of political correctness attributed to her.

**Summary:** They got Sasuke back (yay), Itachi died at his hands (more yay) and Konoha emerged triumphant after having been to hell and back in a handbasket (innumerable amounts of yay.) But sometimes peacetime is just as harrowing as war when old enemies and not so old friends convene at this year's Chuunin exams. (AU futurefic starring the Sand Sibs, various Otonin and the Konoha ensemble. All at once. Fear.)

oOo

Even though his heart and mind were shrilling in disbelief, Kiba only paused for a precious few seconds, then his body sprang into action. Around him, his peers were doing the same, and nobody could fault _Gaara's_ reaction time.

Only moments after the explosion, the entire world went black.

Kiba counted his heartbeats – _one, two, three…_

Then there was light again – pale, eerie witchlights that flickered into existence. He recognised that particular jutsu and looked to his right. Ino gave him a wan smile back before she closed her eyes in concentration – he'd seen her use the technique before on night missions, but never on the scale necessary to light an entire arena.

One, incidentally, with no entrances or exits since Gaara had sealed up the open roof with sand.

That at least meant that the Kazekage was alive.

_Please let Naruto be okay._

_Please let Naruto be okay._

…_please let _her_ be okay._

Already, shinobi were leaping down into the arena. Chouji, Sai and Tenten streaked in opposite directions, each to help calm the seething, screaming masses of civilians in the stands. Neji and Ino also disappeared, presumably to find their genin teams. He felt Shikamaru move up beside him and suddenly remembered that Temari would also have been in the Kages' box. The knowledge just gave him someone else to worry about.

"Ready?" he asked tightly. Shikamaru just nodded and then they were both leaping towards the Kages' box.

Sand and smoke filled Kiba's lungs and eyes, the strong smell irritating his sensitive nose. He coughed, but forged onwards, diving to the heart of the chaos. Something brushed past him and he grabbed at it instinctively, only to yelp in pain when the contact spread painful, painful chakra over his skin. Only one person's energy felt like that…

"Naruto," Kiba croaked, relief flooding his system. "You're alright."

The words sputtered and died when he saw the expression on his Hokage's face. Naruto's normally genial features were set in hard, angry lines and the effect was enough to make even Kiba take a step back.

Naruto looked murderous.

"Where are they?" He didn't even sound like Naruto, not with a voice as flat as that. Kiba looked back towards Shikamaru for guidance, but his friend looked unusually intent as his gaze flickered this way and that.

Then the tension suddenly went out of his body. "Temari."

Indeed, there was the Kage's sister, a scrape along her cheek, but alive nonetheless. "Shikamaru." They were, Kiba thought as he watched them, the oddest couple. They didn't even touch, barely looked at each other, but the sense of relief was still there.

"_Where. Are. They_."

Temari's pale brows slid together instantly. "The entire Oto party is being restrained in their box. Gaara had three squads on it immediately."

"He's okay then?" Kiba asked.

"Gaara's fine." Her jaw clenched. "Kankurou isn't. The silly idiot got in between me and the blast."

"Sakura will see to him." Naruto still looked murderous. "Sasuke's hurt, but the Lord of Fire Country is _dead_. And the daughter of the Raikage has lost a leg." His quiet rage turned hot suddenly. "She was _six_."

"Shit," Kiba breathed, with feeling. His gut felt as if he'd swallowed a kilo of ice and disbelief raged with horror for pride of place in his head.

Tayuya had done this. And he didn't need to think too hard about her motives for doing so. No one did. But there was still something off about it, something not quite right…something that didn't add up.

"Temari-san." One of the Sand chuunin flickered into position beside the blonde woman. "We have a situation."

"We're not in one already?" she asked tartly, but gestured at him to continue. The shinobi glanced nervously at Naruto, whose pulsating chakra had the air of a demon to it. "_Eyes on me_." He snapped back to attention at that, more intimidated by a blonde woman than a man with a monster sealed inside of him. "Report."

"Ah…" Maybe it was the growl from Naruto. Maybe it was the narrowing of Temari's pale green eyes. Maybe it was the weight of Kiba's own (_desperate, frantic, accusing_) probing gaze. Either way, the unfortunate Chuunin swallowed and continued. "It's Tayuya-san."

Wincing was a bad idea – it earned him a dangerous, too-feral-for-comfort look from Naruto – but Kiba couldn't help it. He didn't want to hear this, didn't want to hear about the state of her remains, of how the bomb she had made of her very body had caused so much destruction and, _dammit_, he had trusted a terrorist and he still couldn't quite believe that-.

"…she's alive, Temari-san."

The words hit him like a punch to the gut and it seemed as if, for a moment, his loyalties were painfully skewed. Because he _shouldn't_ have been happy that a terrorist was alive. Because it shouldn't have sent a tremor of relief through him to hear that she had survived her attack upon the dignitaries. Because he shouldn't have immediately looked towards Naruto in alarm as to what his friend was going to go in the face of such a revelation.

He was right to guess that Naruto was not going to respond positively – dubious as his correctness was in all other things, he was on the money with that one. Since he'd turned his head fast enough, he saw the exact moment when Naruto was given someone tangible and alive to blame, when grief and frustration turned into the rage of a man who could call upon the powers of a demon. He _felt_ his friend's chakra levels skyrocket and, before he'd even thought about it, his hands were tangled in the folds of Naruto's robes.

Distantly, he heard Shikamaru exclaim in surprise and Akamaru growl – presumably in response to someone reacting to his sudden move in a hostile fashion – but all he could see was the way in which Naruto's blue eyes were turning red. "She didn't do it, Naruto." The words fell out of his mouth before he could think and, really, he knew he couldn't justify it. For a moment, all of the anger in those crimson eyes was aimed directly at him and the pressure was unimaginable, but Kiba was _sure_. He couldn't put into words why – that she wouldn't have done it like this, that there'd have been a challenge and not an assassination, that she wouldn't have _slept with him_ only to do this – but he'd always been someone who'd trusted his gut reaction.

But so was Naruto. And, clearly, his friend's gut was crying out for the blood of the woman he'd just seen attack the foundations of peace. Kiba winced when Naruto's chakra lashed at him, but stubbornly held his ground. "It looks bad. I get that." Oh how he got that. Things were all going to hell, but Kiba refused to let go of Naruto's sleeve as he stared desperately into what he hoped were the eyes of his friend, not of his Hokage. "_Please_, Naruto, you've just got to trust me on this one." It was a longshot, a huge thing to ask because it required Naruto to act on nothing but secondhand faith.

Kiba just hoped that it was enough.

(It wasn't.)

oOo

"Get your hands off—it wasn't fucking _me_! How many times do I need to say that?" There were too many of them. Far too many in too small a space. Nobody was even bothering right now with fancy binding jutsu or invisible restraints, just the heavy press of too many bodies bearing her to the ground. She caught a glimpse of Kaede's terrified face, of Dai being forcibly held back by a grim-faced Jiroubou whose own eyes burned with horror and anger, and then her hair blocked out the entirety of her vision as her forehead was slammed into the ground. She felt the skin over her skull split with the force of it all and new shades of red dripped viscously into her furious eyes. Her blood was the same colour as her hair, as that of the gruesomely perfect parody of herself she had seen explode above the dignitaries' box. In truth, it was more the flagrant use of her body and face and all that she represented that was filling her with rage, not the surging wave of Suna shinobi that had flooded into Oto's reserved box mere heartbeats afterwards. _Not_ that she was happy about the barely-restrained killing intent that muddied the air and turned it as heavy as spoiled honey, but – and it galled her, how it galled her, to not fight back – she couldn't respond with her own vicious internal fire. Even she knew that, after what she'd just seen, she couldn't fight back.

…she was going to kill them. Not the 'them' that held her down as they finally wrapped her up in layer upon layer of chakra-binding ink, but the 'them' that had brought the past rushing forwards into the present. It had left a sour taste in her mouth to share space with all these enemies of old, but they had been _getting_ somewhere. _Oto_ had been getting somewhere, finally, after far too long spent being the scapegoat of all the world.

Everyone had always assumed that, if anyone in Oto was going to trample their fragile, spun-sugar chances for an alliance, it would be foul-mouthed, hot-tempered Tayuya. And they had been right, yet oh so horribly wrong all at the same time. Tayuya's face had betrayed them, her form had set their hopes on fire, but not the woman herself, not the one currently buried beneath the bodies of those who thought her a terrorist.

Really, if this was what it was going to have come to, she'd have rather done the deed herself than suffer for someone else's decision to be a zealot whilst wearing her face.

She cursed hotly when someone – many someones, in fact – leant too hard on her still healing ribs. Her shoulder was a burning brand of a white-hot pain thanks to the unnatural angle into which it was being forced. This was not gentle, perfunctory restraint, simply for show – it was a vice-like pressure that stank of hatred and anger, something she lacked the sheer physical strength or up close taijutsu skills to remove herself from. Her chakra was dampened, sealed into a single speck of brightness within her breast. Without that and without the flute she saw turning in an angry shinobi's unmusical hands, she was little more than a normal woman, held down by the strength of a man.

She almost wished she'd taken Jiroubou up on those offers to hone her hand-to-hand combat skills what seemed like a lifetime ago now…

And what hurt her pride the most was that she _could_ have fought them earlier, could have resisted the seals their hissing, sand-worn chants had placed on her body and mind, but they'd already seen 'her' launch an attack on some of the most valuable people in the land. They were merely restraining her now, but if she fought back, they'd kill her for sure.

Tayuya's blood was salty where it ran into her mouth and settled on her tongue and oh how she hated the part of her that had become a politician.

"_Stop._"

Her head was still ringing with the force of the contact it had made with the hard, hard ground, so it was with a dizzy, inappropriate sort of humour that Tayuya wondered when Kidoumaru had started sounding like a real leader. The authority in his voice could rival Jiroubou for weight and—"Aah!" She hated screaming, but they'd surprised it out of her with a pressure that had suddenly become too great for her mortal body to bear. Her shoulder made a ghastly cracking sound as it was forced out of its socket and Tayuya – restrained and probably concussed – didn't have much choice about the sound that ripped itself out of her throat.

That was about when the pressure above her suddenly lessened.

Panting in a mixture of relief and scythe-edged pain, Tayuya had to blink away both the grey edges and blood obscuring her vision. Her arms were still pinioned behind her (the dislocated one as worthless as a hunk of long dead meat) but her neck was now free to move and she turned her head to see where all of that merciless weight had gone. A Suna jounin – no, she was mistaken, two - were pinned to the wall by a glutinous, faintly glowing mass and that meant only one thing. Another turn of her head made the world lurch sickeningly, but – nausea or not – Tayuya forced herself to focus on where Kidoumaru stood, all dark and thunderous, and, really, she didn't think she'd ever seen him look so angry before. He was so fucking amiable all of the god damned time that she forgot how dangerous his hands and heart and supernova bright chakra could be. He looked at them, all arrogance and commanding presence, and there was a calm defiance in those dark eyes of his. "What is this all about?"

Even lying down, she _felt_ the crowd of Suna nin bristle. Their outrage was palpable in the way that it sparked like a flare of magma. She nearly passed out when that anger translated a vicious twist of her already injured arm. "What the—she tried to _assassinate the Kazekage!_" one of them snapped from somewhere behind her left ear.

Kidoumaru's expression didn't change. "I can assure you, she did not."

The most vocal of her captors tensed with rage. "You damn soundies. You can't _deny_ this one." Tayuya actually opened her mouth at that one, pissed off beyond all belief at the insinuation that they'd ever tried to shed responsibility for anything, but the look on Kidoumaru's face stilled even her poisonous tongue. Besides, the Suna nin was already barrelling onwards. "We saw her. We _all_ saw her."

Tayuya recognised a shift in Kidoumaru's expression as a sign of him trying to be as infuriating as possible. She knew from painful, aggravating experience that he was extremely good at it. "Are you sure that you saw what you saw?"

Normally, she was all for winding Suna nin up, but it was less satisfying when she was at the bottom of the pile, subject to every single ounce of pain her captors saw fit to make her experience. She winced when spite and disquiet and the entire host of emotions subordinates who had seen an attack on their commander were subject to made them hold her harder than was necessary, her lips twisting in dark, bitter irony. '_I hope you know what you're doing, spider-bastard,'_ she thought grimly as she glared at him from beneath the unwelcome press of bodies. She was staring at him, wondering just where the hell he was going with this, but he wasn't looking at her and it took her a heartbeat to work out why.

'…_shit.'_

Konoha had a demon for a Kage. That much was common knowledge among all shinobi. But there was a difference between knowing that Uzumaki Naruto housed a demon and _feeling_ it. Once, she'd thought that Orochimaru-sama's chakra was the heaviest burden anyone could bear, forcing a person to their knees and bowing theirs heads in owed supplication, but even her former master's power seemed like a shadow, a ghost, a will-o-the-wisp in comparison to the way in which the blonde Hokage blazed. He was a sun – an angry, ferocious, burning-hot sun whose power licked at them with summer's heat and lashed at them with hellfire in the same breath and it felt like the very air in her lungs was turned to ash as he flickered into place behind Kidoumaru. The Suna bitch was there and the shadow guy and the Hokage's pink girl and many, many more, but he was all she could manage to concentrate on. Her eyes only briefly rested on a familiar (at least after last night) form and the pale shape of his absurdly large dog beside him for a second before they slid back towards the Hokage.

Even if she'd done the deed of which she'd been accused, Tayuya wouldn't have had space inside of her for guilt when she was too busy trying to remember how to breathe in the face of the Uzumaki Naruto's burning fury.

"Hokage-sama," Kidoumaru said, as urbanely as if they were sitting down for tea, "thank you for arriving so promptly."

"Get out of the way." The Uzumaki, on the other hand, sounded about as far from polite as it was possible to be, a realm he shared with Tayuya more than he did the person he was addressing.

There was nothing even close to resembling regret on Kidoumaru's face. "I'm afraid I can't do that."

She hadn't thought it possible, but all that chakra flared even higher and Tayuya found that she was shivering, feather-fine trembles that plagued her muscles despite her repeated orders to stop. The blonde wasn't messing around. "_Move."_

"If I move, you'll kill her." Kidoumaru took one step and then another. By then, he was fully facing the seething Hokage, his back to Tayuya as his body formed a barrier between her and Konoha's leader. It was a paltry wall, for it didn't do anything to lessen the pressure of Naruto's chakra, but Tayuya saw it for the symbol of defiance that it was. "And I can't let you kill an innocent person."

Bad choice of words there.

"_Innocent?_ You've gotta be-."

"It wasn't her, Hokage-sama." How could he sound so fucking _civilised_ when the world was balanced on a knife's edge? "And I can't go about proving that when I'm worried you're going to kill her the moment I let my guard down. She is restrained and not resisting – that means she isn't an immediate threat and you will _not_ murder her before she's proven guilty."

There was a moment where Tayuya thought all of Kidoumaru's words were going to be discounted. Naruto came terribly close to attacking the six-armed man (she could see it in his eyes and smell it in the stifling air) and she was _really_ rethinking this whole 'not fighting back' thing when the pink-haired chit laid a single hand on the Hokage's shoulder. It spoke of a ballsiness she hadn't expected the girl to have because Tayuya knew that _she_ most definitely wouldn't have wanted to touch the guy, not when he was that angry. Pushing that tiny hand of hers through all of that molten chakra couldn't have been without a fair amount of pain, but it didn't show on the Haruno girl's solemn features as she squeezed her Hokage's shoulder. "It's Gaara's call, Naruto," she told him. Then, in a lower voice, one so soft that Tayuya wasn't even sure if she'd imagined it or not, "And you'll hate yourself tomorrow."

His anger did not disappear instantaneously. His power did not evaporate, nor did it diminish…but there was a distinct lessening of the unbearable pressure in the air and now it just hurt to breathe, rather than the act being impossible. With no regard for the etiquette demanded of his position, Naruto spat on the ground between himself and Kidoumaru, his eyes burning with barely restrained fury. "I want her contained."

Kidoumaru's back looked very sturdy from where she was lying. "She will be."

"The only reason she isn't dead now is because you say you can prove she ain't guilty," Naruto said in a dangerous tone. "If she is, she's dead."

"If she is," Kidoumaru echoed, "I will carry out the sentence myself."

It should have hurt to hear him say that, but it didn't. Because, weighed down as she was by all of the bloody Suna nin, Tayuya knew Kidoumaru was putting their chances for an alliance on the line to protect her. More than that, she knew that if she _had_ been guilty and she had deliberately risked said chances, she wasn't worth protecting, not when they'd all fought so hard to help Suna rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes.

With that in mind, she couldn't quite find it in herself to hate him for the death sentence hanging over her head in that moment.

"Dai, put her under."

…now_ that_ she could hate him for. Her young student looked alarmed, but Jiroubou was already holding out his massive hands for the gloves that stopped the palms of his hands from putting everyone he accidentally touched to sleep. Tayuya knew all too well how fast her genin's curious talent worked and she _thought_ about struggling, futile though it was. The indignity of being anaesthetised like a wild animal made her want to balk, made her want to fight up until her very last moment of consciousness…but then she met Kidoumaru's gaze. And it was stupid and foolish and altogether _not_ like her, but the bastard had got her this far.

"…if you're going to kill me, at least wake me when you do it, you fucker," she growled as Dai's tentative, trembling hands touched the bare nape of her neck. If it came to that, she wanted him to have to look her in the eye as the life fled her body.

She thought she saw him nod before the darkness swallowed her whole.

oOo

**Author's Comments:**

…yeah, feel free to yell me. There are no excuses, save for the fact that life ate me up and spat me back out. Also, I hate rewriting things. I made some massive changes in my head as to where the story was going to go and…yeah, I hate rewriting things. So this just sat on my harddrive, becoming a bigger and bigger thing the longer I left it.

BUT THE POINT IS, HERE'S AN UPDATE. (Told you I'd never let it die.)

To anyone still reading this, thank you so much for being as patient as you've been. –bows-

**In next week's episode…**

_'No happy endings. No one there to pick up the pieces and put them back together again.'_


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